34 NEW STATES: Why Every Major U.S. City Should Be Its Own State, But Never Will Be 

I grew up in New York City, and I've always thought that the 5 boroughs of New York City along with Long Island and Westchester County should be their own state because of the cultural and political differences from the rest of New York state.

You could argue that Rhode Island is the one city-state in the US, the entire state (and a little of MA, but we’ll ignore that) is considered the Providence metro and Prov very clearly dominates the state economy. You can also travel through the entire state in under an hour

Having lived in northern NJ and upstate NY, i think your idea makes lots of sense. Downstate NY has far more in common with NJ, CT, and surroundings than it does with upstate NY. It sways every NY election. Upstate would be very “red” with the exception of a few old Rust Belt cities. I know politicians would rather be downstate than in Albany (“Smallbany”).

My policy professor this quarter at UW told us that back when he was in our master's program, there would be at least one paper every year in each section about legalizing weed and the professors would make fun of the students openly, saying it could never happen. He graduated five years before recreational became the law. Never say never, especially not in policy spaces.

There would not be 168 senators, but only 166 senators. You added 34 new states, but lost NJ. So the net gain would be 33 states (or 66 senators).

Wouldn't Alaska still be the largest original state (because it remains untouched, no breaking away points)?

South Korea has city-states, called Province-level Cities. After a metro area gets to 1 million people, it can apply to become a Metropolitan City, and is treated like the other provinces. Today there are 8 Province-level Cities, including Seoul and 6 Metropolitan Cities, plus Sejong, a government city.

What if only the big 3, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles become states?

Rockingham and Hillsborough counties in NH would go to war to *not* become a part of Boston.

The political consequences depend on if you lump the suburbs into these new states. For example most of the political power of Detroit comes from the metro area not the city itself. If you leave the suburbs not much would change.

That’s a lot of work you did for this episode. Fascinating thought exercise. Thanks for making something a little different!

This would be beneficial for Missouri, where the state government is essentially at war with Kansas City and St. Louis.

84 states?!?! Won't somebody please, think of the Star Spangled Banner? Betsy Ross is gonna go nuts!

your videos are really great, and so is your work. they provide very interesting content! i wish you good luck on this journey and thank you for the amazing videos!

A fascinating scenario. I appreciate the effort and detail you cover in your videos.

Awesome video! Great graphics!

Fun thought experiment. Great graphics. Love your videos

Probably your best video Thanks

I'm about to watch for the first time. But my first thought is knowing here in Eastern Washington, we'd have to pay 33% higher taxes to cover what we'd lose from Seattle and King County. I'm interested to see what this video is getting at.

Hi, really enjoy your channel ! This episode is Brilliant.... the amount of work that went into this was truly epic. You rock Geoff😊

I had this idea some years ago after seeing voting patterns by county rather than state. It would make a great deal of sense since looking at the county maps the cities were one color while the rest of the state were the other. It comes down to the two cultures and the rules people wish to live under (whether it is a real difference or not - another much longer discussion). Would be interesting to try.

This is fascinating

On the positive side, I think one of the great strengths of the USA is that it is decentralized. Most other countries have all their political corporate power concentrated in one city--London, Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, Mexico City, Buenos Aires--with very little input from the other regions. The USA has several corporate, cultural, and political capitals (Texas itself has 2 or more) that cause some tension but also aid in stability. There isn't just on elite deciding everything for everyone, and you can move to somewhere that more fits your outlook...Also, in our current system, the rural and resource-producing areas have more political power proportional to their importance to the economy, and that's a good thing, even when I don't agree with everything coming out of Red state politics.

loved the video. The same movement as "Greater Idaho" but from the polar oposite side. Mostly the powerfull citys due not feel persucuted by the rural counties and so have no movement to break away. Would love to see a video about what would happen, good & bad, if rural counties that feel they have no representaion could vote to join a more rural adjoining state and the law was such that they did not need the vote of their states legislatures or of the federal goverment. I think the changes would be fasinating and very different for differnent areas of the country.

Hmm interesting angle. Thanks, for the video. 👍

I don't think this would shift the country one way or the other politically. Yes, city states would lean heavily left, but many of the rural states would lean right, including Northern California. It would really help the cities themselves to be able to raise financing independently of the surrounding state. Cities could concentrate on their own needs and services

This video captured a significant part of my brain. 😂 Thank you! I think about this far too often.

Honestly, I've argued-- theoretically-- that this would be advantageous for us to do, though I know it will never work. But...I think major cities should control their own affairs more closely, and I think rural places are so different from major cities in so many ways culturally and ideologically that it might be better to let each police their own needs. The fact that rural places could then compete in their own way would make them not feel so subservient to city politics. Politicians could then more accurately, hopefully, fight for needs that are specific to their region

It won't work well. I think the 2nd largest city that each metro leaves behind in each state would develop rapidly forming their own urban cities and new metros, while the original separate metros themselves might lose population.

good editing

Ngl, while I am a big fan of this channel, considering how vicious and extremist the two parties are, radically redistributing the borders of the states to favor either party would be an incredibly bad idea.

I wouldn't say that they should be made into entirely new states. But maybe there should be like some new status for them like "Sector of New York" or "Metropolis of Los Angeles". Then the cities can have their own rules and regulations apart from the rest of the state. But I don't see every big city getting this type of status, I would say NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Miami getting it, those cities are famous for being economic, political, and cultural hubs in the US.

This could be interesting !

Very interesting vid! "I'm from Jersey" and just want to say you are spot on splitting NJ between "the city" and Philly. We've always been pulled in one direction or the other, yet weirdly unified in that. If put to a referendum, I think everyone would agree it made perfect sense and yet not actually want to do it.

This is a surprisingly good idea

great video! I bet people will still comment and complain about cities and states though 😅

America should already just realize and embrace the fact that city dwellers and rural folk dont mix politically or financially and learn after the german systems of city states and the autobahn

Would it be possible for you to share a map of the states, or at least list the cities that are split off?

I completely agree with cities becoming individual states. Trouble is that cities are NOT terrorized by rest of the area state, the rural areas are terrorized by the cities.

Another complicating factor is how to divide up the state's obligations. They would argue about how pension and debt obligations are handled.

You should make more videos like this one looking into more natural subdivisions of North America! Of cause, as you said, it is impossible to do anything with statehood or any border changes with the current political climate, but it is interesting to imagine optional states/countries. I have sometimes thought that USA and Canada should have been divided differently. Here is my suggestion to how to mix up and divide USA and Canada in four similar size countries based on current state borders, geographic areas, and cultural divisions: Atlantic-Arctic: Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, population 101 mill, area 6.4 mill.sq.km. Midwest-Prairies: Alberta, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Manitoba, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, population 88 mill, area 4.9 mill.sq.km. Pacific-Mountain: Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, New Mexico, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Yukon, population 79 mill, area 5 mill.sq.km. South-Gulf: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, US Virgin Islands, population 103 mill, area 1.8 mill.sq.km.

And if my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a wagon.

Cool video, Geoff!! Interesting idea and it would remedy several problems, not the least of which is the perception of many people that their representatives don't really represent them or their interests left, right, and center. It might even cool some of the secession fever which flares from time to time. It would also address the serious (and growing) large urban and NOT-large-urban divide. However, like you, I don't see this happening soon unless some unusual leadership is able to sell the idea to the American public. I have also wondered about the urban megaregions becoming states rather than just the city-states. I could see where that could be a bigger challenge as many of these places don't yet identify as united regions and the fact you are just dealing with many more people. But who knows what the next decades will bring.

Great video, but House seats aren’t proportioned based on an “average” amount. You would have to recalculate how the 435 House reps would be apportioned using the Huntington-Hill method.

Trust me when I say. The current state of Illinois would love for the entire Chicago area become their own state. They have nothing in common with the rest of the state

we should also make them like tokyo. tokyo has different wards, which operate like completely independant cities under a provincial (or, for the US, state) government. ofc US cities have a lot more crime, homelessness, pollution, etc than tokyo but splitting metro areas like this seems to have worked there.

I love Geography ❤

Crazy!

What’s the name of the song used in the video ?

Memphis is the transportation hub of the entire country, and the urban area of Memphis has a bigger population than urban Nashville. Memphis is extremely important and should be listed in this as well. Not just Nashville.

City States would be neat I can't say for sure if it would be better, but if I had the power to snap my fingers and make this happen I would

I support county breakups. So Clark County, NV which is 3/4ths of state doesn’t have too much power. Many cities can also be counties like found in VA

I wouldn't dismiss this out of hand. I can state for a fact that although the Detroit metro area didn't meet your 2 million threshold, the majority of us in western Michigan resent the sway Detroit area politics has on the entire state.

The follow-on is likely that the whole political setup would be reformed into something else, we might also imagine that the rump rural statelets would join up with other rural statelets, and the combination would make at least multi-party democracy with leveling seats essential, otherwise the rural states would consistently be underrepresented. I think this is one of the three big things that would make the U.S. Much bigger than it currently is, another would be doing either NAWAPA or GRAND, and the third would be building out large vacuum train connections between the big urban region states.

Wait. It’s actually the other way around. Cities holding everything else hostage and forcing them to abide by their rules. That’s how you get gun regulations in areas where you have a low human population and a high bear population.

Interesting. I can imagine the mass shifting of residents to align with their life. 🙋🏼

Very well laid out thought processes. Geographically this premise is highly logical but as you demonstrated within the electoral college votes, equal representation throughout the nation would lean heavily towards urban centers. Thus illustrates the geniuos of the electoral college that distributes equal representation nationally. Very good video. Very thought provocing and insiteful!

Ngl it never felt like you reached the meat of the video and just skimmed it. Especially for multi state cities and their benfits. Or how you got rid of new jersey

Those 34 new states are looking at years, maybe decades of legal battles.

I don’t think the people of Illinois would agree that Chicago is held hostage by the state.

Fantastic analysis! Well done. Can't tell you how much I enjoy your episodes. Yes I agree, give Puerto Rico full statehood along with the benefits and responsibilities therein. With DC......I don't know. Best regards.

As a philadelphian I support this plan however, on behalf of all Philadelphia we don't want any part of new jersey they can do their own thing.

You forgot Milwaukee and Salt Lake City. 2.8 million live in the Provo-SLC-Ogden Metro. They consider SLC and Provo 2 different metros but they blend together now. Driving north on I-15 the metro starts in Payson and doesn’t end until you’re past Ogden… roughly 160 miles of bumper to bumper traffic. Outside of the Boston to Washington DC corridor it’s the longest metro I’ve ever driven through. Everyone is crammed between the mountains to the east and 2 lakes to the west(Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake). Logan is cut off from the metro by a few miles but it’ll blend into everything in the next 20 years. Most people have no clue how huge the SLC area is and how fast it’s grown since the Olympics. Milwaukee metro is 2.1 million. Madison metro of 900,000 touches Milwaukee’s metro so call it 3 million… and since they both touch the Rockford metro and Chicago metro that totals 13,000,000 million.

I stand with working with what we got instead of trying to break it up. as said, doing this kind of thing would split the country even more in a negative way. It would overshadow the few virtuous positives.

See this the type of video I wish Raleigh-Durham was 1 metro It should be not the split 😭

This could only work if we changed the Federal Union to be more of a federation than a central government. Senators would be more like delegates or ambassadors than lawmakers. The states would need more self-rule being in essence independent countries united into a federation. Similar to the European Union or the United States under the Articles of Confederation.

I would offer that the states are held hostage by the major cities within them. This is why counties in California and Colorado have talked about session from their respective states.

The total would actually be 83 because while you're adding 34 city-states, then New Jersey ends up going away. Though I guess the 84th state would be Puerto Rico because they should be a state.

Should the Great American Empire ever fall, City-States would be a very valid way for the average continental citizen to be governed. Each land would provide only for oneself, not exploiting the resources to subsidize one rural land for another, and passing laws and rights pertaining to each one's self and people.

I imagine this would be similar to the map that would result from the civil war that tim pool is always saying is coming anytime now

Amen brother! I would argue that entire metro areas should be their own states.

Video title is "Why Every Major U.S. City Should Be Its Own State" but the conclusion is the exact opposite of that.

I'm not sure the political results would favor conservatives. Nearly all the new states would be controlled by liberals. The House and Senate would both become lopsided.

I'd say it's less the cities being held hostage by the rest and more the opposite way...

Raleigh-Durham is now over 2,000,000 people.

They can be city states, fantastic idea. however I believe it should only include the city boundaries and not the metro area boundaries, there is still an obvious urban/Suburban divide.

Hi Geoff, I moved to Dallas nearly 5 yrs ago from Atlanta. There is an influx of mostly Floridians & Californians moving to this city. CA is a liberal, democratic state. FL is a conservative, republican state. Rent and mortgages have skyrocketed. Additionally, jobs are requiring more skills and paying less. How do you think the differing political stances of CA & FL will redevelop Dallas in the next decade or two?

I think that if any state borders change soon, it’s gonna be the greater Idaho idea

Being born and raised in (southern) New Jersey, north jersey and south jersey are already pretty much two different states entirely so no one would miss it anyway 😅

I wish this was true for Sydney Aus. More focus would be put on rural areas while Sydney could have the same attention it had before + more.

America is a huge and diverse country. that is to say, every state,region and its people are completely different. the Pacific Northwest region and the Deep South region are two totally different regions, so are the people there, and every state and region have its own history,laws, climate, economy,you name it.

Make the case for DC to become a state or retrocess back into MD. Pls.

The problem with this is that states use cities to pay for the standard of living in rural areas. The individualistic mindset of rural people and major news outlets only focusing on crime and violence helps them live in a delousion of not needing their states cities even if actual crime statistics are lower than the national average.

Might want to ask the Greeks how city states worked out for them

Why can't Baltimore, Buffalo, Richmond, Norfolk, Greensboro, Raleigh, Jacksonville, Orlando, Louisville, Birmingham, Milwaukee, Memphis, New Orleans, Omaha, Oklahoma City, El Paso, Albuquerque and Salt Lake City be considered major cities?

The states would likely need ro even further divided for efficiency. I could see Northern California and Southern California. North Florida and South Florida

The seat of federal government was to be separate from any state so as to be self-sufficient. To make it a state now would run counter to that reasoning.

Each state gets an EC per senator, and then the rest is based on population. So each state always has at least 3

Being from Spokane Washington, I have to agree. I think Seattle and Olympia, and all those big cities on that side of the state should be their own state. It’s literally like from one side of the cascade mountains to the other. We don’t really see Eye 2 Eye

I don't like throwing the whole county into the city's metro areas. I know that east King and Pierce county in the Seattle Metro area don't align with those in the city at all and there has been a push for east King county dividing away from the more developed west side

Hmmm, to say (0:20) that "cities are often held hostage by the states that run them" sure seems to be the exact opposite of the reality. In many states that have large city populations, it's the cities that control the state, including the voting influence. In NY State, it's NYC that ends up being the voting power when choosing a Governor and other important state representatives. The wants and needs of the city are vastly different from the people that live "upstate", yet the city has a big influence over what goes on within the State. Also, many people that live near the city but just over the boundary, are many times city employees and they vote more along the lines of City residents. Many state laws, like gun laws, are in place across NY Sate due to the crime and violence of NYC, not NY State. The amount of immigration (both legal and illegal) ends up costing people that don't live in the City and raises their taxes and affects their school curriculums as well. The more liberal influence of NYC makes its way to the more conservative schools north of the City. Cities control the state, not so much the other way around, at least not in places like NY State and City. The majority of non city residents would love for NYC to be its own "State" and not have influence over the rest of the state. That's a fact. The number set to categorize a City as a State is a good choice at 2 million and seems fair and realistic. Do you really think that Californians identify more as Californians, or that the Democratic party pushed for this not to happen so that they didn't lose their massive influence during US Presidential elections and their electoral college numbers? Did the fact that the already crime filled cities that are broke, would have less resources to pull from and their welfare dollars would be unsustainable without the now separate state resources? There seem to be many more reasons that Californians didn't vote to break the state into 6 separate states, other than state pride. This scenario might also disprove many things we are hearing about certain narratives. Even with US Presidential elections being more likely to go to democrats, the power of the remaining, more rural states, would increase to the point that states wold finally be more of the separate entities they were originally designed to be. Great job on the research and format. Liked and subbed. 👍

You forgot the most important detail. Which states would NOT shrink as you brought the 2mln. threshold LOWER? This would tell you in what states the maximum of population density is low, i.e. which states are against cities, period.

They could start with San Francisco, Broomfield, Denver, and I forget which the 4th City/County cohabitation are. These could become City States. They are the most logical choices.

I will go a step further. I think every major city should be functionally its own country. They should not have any say in the national government or receive federal funding, but at the same time they get complete autonomy within their borders and are not taxed. This allows cities to pass policies that are best for them without harming surrounding areas.

Question, is this problem with states only a US problem, or could most other countries do this as well with urban areas. For example, should Toronto separate from Ontario or Munich separate from Bavaria or Shanghai separate from Jiangsu? But similar to the US, capitals often form their own territory.

Seems to me that the high population cities rule over the rest of the state. This has led several counties to romote the idea of becoming their own states. Similar but different. Examples California Washington state and Colorado

What happens to capitals?

if major cities would be states then what would their major city be?

Most people in major cities think food comes from stores and gas comes from gas stations.

Somehow, I doubt a state capital would want to break away from its own state.