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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Being all coast (While Pennsylvania and Vermont technically aren't connected to the Atlantic Ocean, they are still considered part of the East Coast) probably doesn't help, either. The South and West are a mix of both coastal and inland areas, and while the Midwest doesn't have any coast, it consists of a ton of inland area.
edited 18th Feb '16 11:27:20 AM by Bat178
Look at a map of the original thirteen colonies, to begin with I'd say you had pretty even area, but while the north-east expanded a bit it didn't expand like other areas did.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranIf you look at it in terms of population density, it makes more sense, but even more than that, the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic is the original United States, derived from the thirteen colonies that rebelled. Most of the other states were formed during the nation's westward and southward expansion. Since the rules for statehood specify a minimum number of persons, there was a big push to get chunks of land declared as states as soon as they met that requirement, which also naturally made those new states fairly large by comparison with the more densely-populated east.
"Let's draw straight-ish lines around 50,000 people and call it a state!" "Done."
edited 18th Feb '16 11:31:16 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"There was a push to locate the capital in a chunk of land that was not already in a state, so that no state could derive any kind of claim to superiority from the fact of having the capital within its borders. What is now Washington, DC was originally a swamp between Maryland and Virginia that nobody wanted to live in.
edited 18th Feb '16 11:33:42 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"DC exists literally to be the seat of government. It has no other real economic purpose, although it could serve as a port on the Potomac, I suppose.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"DC was the first of its kind in that regard, but nowadays several countries have "built cities" which were designed for political neutrality and for being the capital and little else, like Brasilia, Abuja, New Delhi and Islamabad (arguably, both built merely on the outskirts of their countries' principle cities), Naypyitaw, Astana, and Canberra.
New York City is pretty much the Capital of the US economically, industrially and population-wise. Seems Washington D.C. is pretty much only the Capital politically, and is only the Capital so the other states don't fight about one having the capital and because the Government and most of their agencies are based there and in neighboring Virginia and Maryland, also parts of the South (Though they and Delaware are closer to the Northeast culturally than the rest of the South).
edited 18th Feb '16 12:26:52 PM by Bat178
A capital divide like that is only needed if you have relatively large regions, several capitals (Berlin, Moscow, London) grew large enough to become regions of their own, thus beyond the control of any region. London in particular went from being a sub-county within Middlesex to actually eating almost all of Middlesex (with the remainder going to Surrey and Hertfordshire).
edited 18th Feb '16 12:33:50 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranHowever actually trying to well run Washington D.C. as a city is fucked because U.S. Congress 'exclusive jurisdiction' over the city. It has a Mayor and a small city council now since the 70s but the congress can overturn any law and has to approve any expenditure.
Those living there do not have a vote in Congress as well like Puerto Rico or Guam but unlike them DC residences have to pay federal taxes and they pay more per person than anywhere else in the nation.
During my visit there when I was in the 8th grade I saw lots of "Taxation Without Representation" bumper stickers and custom license plates.
edited 18th Feb '16 12:36:32 PM by Memers
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And then there is South Africa who has three separate capitals (Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Cape Town) for it's executive, judicial and legislative branches, and Cote D'Ivoire, which has two separate Capitals, one being the political capital (Yamoussoukro) and the other the economic capital (Abidjan, which is also the Largest City of Cote D'Ivoire). Kashmir also has two capitals, but for a different reason (The Capital is temporarily changed from Srinagar (Which is also the Largest City of Kashmir) to Jammu in the Winter, as the harsh weather conditions in Kashmir during Winter prevent Srinagar from being accessible).
edited 18th Feb '16 12:53:30 PM by Bat178
Which is an effective representation of the founders' disdain for federal governance.
"This place is an obnoxious, uninhabitable shithole that nobody wants." "Perfect! Let's put the federal capitol there."
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.(The New Republic) How the Southern Strategy made Donald Trump possible
Top Democratic economists don't think much of Bernienomics. He doesn’t care.
(Bernie's not concerned with the politically possible, he's more concerned about pretty much burning down the current Democratic Party elites like Clinton and DWS who have turned America's progressive party into a lazy fat atrophied version of itself.)
Wonkery has a well-known Liberal Bias
(Basically Krugman lamenting Sanders and his supporters' obsession with pretty much treating much of the existing Democratic wonk side as the enemy for being realists, who stick for Clinton who is focused on the possible.)
edited 18th Feb '16 12:52:41 PM by PotatoesRock
I'm with Krugman on this one. If Sanders wants to run on pie-in-the-sky ideas as a way to motivate voters who feel like the party is ignoring them, that's his choice to make, but if he and his supporters actively attack the people whose job it is to figure out how to make those ideas work in reality, then they're no better than the Tea Party.
More to the point, if both parties make their appeal to voters on the basis of "magic asterisks", there is truly no longer a difference between them in terms of extremism and disdain for informed policy-making.
If Sanders doesn't rein this in and fill in the gaps in his ideas, I'm not going to vote for him. The last thing we need is for the Democrats to have their own version of the know-nothing Right take control of the party.
edited 18th Feb '16 1:02:12 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"And speaking of Trump and moving to Canada, Cape Breton Island is already advertising
to try and attract liberal-minded people to move there. Emphasis mine. Lots of neat pictures at the link.
Cape Breton is located just off the coast of Maine, in Nova Scotia, Canada. So, you won't need to travel far.
"We are an island about the same size as the Hawaiian Big Island, on the East Coast of Canada," The tourism site says in its appeal. "We always rank high on travel magazine lists of beautiful islands. But we are experiencing a bit of a population problem at the moment. We need people. We need you."
So why is Cape Breton appealing to Donald Trump opposers specifically? They say people who disagree with Mr. Trump's ideologies will find the island much more to their liking.
"Don't wait until Donald Trump is elected president to find somewhere else to live," the appeal says. "Start now, that way, on election day, you just hop on a bus to start your new life in Cape Breton, where women can get abortions...health care is free, you know your neighbors and they look out for you, nobody has a hand gun, Muslim people can roam freely, and the only 'walls' are holding up the roofs of our extremely affordable houses."
edited 18th Feb '16 1:10:05 PM by BlueNinja0
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - SilaswIt's a good pitch. Bit cold, though.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Well, it's Canada in the winter - what did you expect?
And regarding Bernie being too much of an idealist, that's why I asked earlier whether he'd addressed the possibility that he'd let the Perfect become the enemy of the Good. If he would, then he's Not So Different from congressional Republicans. If not, that means he's motivated more towards setting the bargaining table further to the left to start with before compromising on something more in the middle, rather than get treated like Obama & co. and start in the middle, then get dragged to the right.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Sanders may be trying the "start from the left" approach, but his followers are getting a bit strident in their attempts to defend their idol from perceived criticism.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The congressional Republicans are actually evil in that sense, so Sanders whould have to do a lot of catch-up work.
Also, regarding Krugman, I'd like to see if he's got an analysis of the Republican candidate budget proposals.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThere have been several such analyses, cited in earlier columns. It'd take a bit of scrolling back to yank them out. But all would uniformly add massive amounts to the deficit whilst sabotaging social programs across the board.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

@ Bat: It was there first.
edited 18th Feb '16 11:20:16 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On