Could New Jersey be a country on its on?

What I mean by that is, in my example for this topic is that the Articles of Confederation results in US breaking up into smaller nations resulting in United States ceasing to exist.

Now with that being said, would my home state of New Jersey be better off a country on its own? Or would it most likely to merge with Pennsylvania or New York or worse... Be invaded by New York or Pennsylvania? :confused:
 
Merge with New York, which may merge with New England in turn.

I'd imagine due to the majority of its population tilting north it'd join a Yankee confederation, even if its south leaned to Pennsylvania.
 
As another native New Jerseyan (albeit currently transplanted) I could easily see NJ being split between PA and NY eventually. The state is basically split as is currently with either being NYC or Philly suburbs.
 
As another native New Jerseyan (albeit currently transplanted) I could easily see NJ being split between PA and NY eventually. The state is basically split as is currently with either being NYC or Philly suburbs.

New Jersey, a state whose population and size is only slightly smaller than that of Lombardy - one of the biggest and most prosperous regions in Italy - is nothing but a suburb? :eek: Sure, a good chunk of western Lombardy has become a suburb of Milan in the last half century, but... holy shit.
 
New Jersey, a state whose population and size is only slightly smaller than that of Lombardy - one of the biggest and most prosperous regions in Italy - is nothing but a suburb? :eek: Sure, a good chunk of western Lombardy has become a suburb of Milan in the last half century, but... holy shit.

Welcome to the New World, I guess....

Don't fret, the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states are mostly empty to make up for it. ;) :p
 

Deleted member 9338

NY will take a little of the north and Pennsylvania takes the rest based on the phone original charter.
 
New Jersey, a state whose population and size is only slightly smaller than that of Lombardy - one of the biggest and most prosperous regions in Italy - is nothing but a suburb? :eek: Sure, a good chunk of western Lombardy has become a suburb of Milan in the last half century, but... holy shit.

Obvious there are things in NJ beyond just suburbs (major pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries, good amount of farming). However, it is strongly influenced by large cities on its border. Hence the suburbs comment.
 
Obvious there are things in NJ beyond just suburbs (major pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries, good amount of farming). However, it is strongly influenced by large cities on its border. Hence the suburbs comment.
Indeed. It also gets to one of the common issues with state boundaries in the US; so many run along rivers. Since cities tend to grow up on both sides of rivers, you have a bunch of cases where you will have a major city in one state, and a smaller satellite city just across the river (e.g. New York City in NY, and Newark in NJ).

If you do have states becoming separate countries, that sort of scenario seems unsustainable; just as the early US desperately wanted Louisiana to control both banks of the Mississippi, New York is not going to allow the shore opposite to New York City to be controlled by a different country (and Pennsylvania will feel the same way about the mouth of the Delaware).

Both Pennsylvania and New York are sufficiently larger than NJ in size that they will be able to impose their will on New Jersey; you'll either get a partition or New Jersey will be a site of frequent conflicts (the Belgium of North America).
 
Both Pennsylvania and New York are sufficiently larger than NJ in size that they will be able to impose their will on New Jersey; you'll either get a partition or New Jersey will be a site of frequent conflicts (the Belgium of North America).


Assuming NY itself holds together. If NYC splits off at some point, then NJ might be able to hold its own, esp if the New England states don't want PA to get too powerful and ally to keep it in its place..
 
Likely divided between New York and Pennsylvania, with Pennsylvania getting the lion's share. In my own barely plotted scenario, that's the case, with Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware forming a sort of much reduced USA.
 

abc123

Banned
Of course it can, every village can be it's own state, like San Marino or Monaco, not to mention Vatican.;)
 
You gotta take into account what the population was back then, not the current situation

Doing a little googling in 1790 (the first census) the populations were

New York -319,000 + 21,000 slaves
New Jersey -173,000 +11,000 slaves
Pennsylvania --431,000 + 3000 slaves
Massachusetts' --378, 000 all free.
Virginia-- 455,000 +292,000 slaves


I'd say NJ has just enough population to be a tough nut for its neighbors to swallow but will end up being within someone's sphere of influence.
 
I don't think so. I can imagine it being split up along East/West lines, something like this.

Wpdms_east_west_new_jersey.png


I was going to do a timeline on this, and although I gave up on it, I did split up New Jersey between New York and a rump USA (basically greater Pennsylvania).
 
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