New contiguous US State

After 1900, how could a new US state be carved out of the one of the contiguous 48 states?

The US can't annex new territory to do this.
 

Driftless

Donor
Three quick options

Split off some portion of the New York City metro from upstate
North and South California - pick your poison for where to split
East & West Texas - just because...
 
Baja Arizona and North Colorado come to mind. As well as NYC Statehood. But if I was listing ones that should be states I would bet on say, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Marianas, District of Columbia etc.

Edit: Forgot it said contiguous. So DC, Baja Arizona etc.
 
Go the opposite way. Combine Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts into one state and Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine into another because having individual states that small is dumb.
 

Wallet

Banned
Go the opposite way. Combine Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts into one state and Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine into another because having individual states that small is dumb.
By land or population? Other then Vermont those states all have large populations. If you combine them, they lose representation in the senate. That's not democratic.

Why not combine the states of Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah? Those states hardly have any people compared to other states and are massively over represented in the senate. These states despite having a very small percentage of the national population, make up a sizable voting block in the senate.
 
By land or population? Other then Vermont those states all have large populations. If you combine them, they lose representation in the senate. That's not democratic.

Why not combine the states of Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah? Those states hardly have any people compared to other states and are massively over represented in the senate. These states despite having a very small percentage of the national population, make up a sizable voting block in the senate.

I don't care about democratic or undemocratic. I just hated having to keep track of those tiny little pieces on my map puzzle when I was a kid and I would like to prevent other kids from experiencing the same pain.
 
I don't care about democratic or undemocratic. I just hated having to keep track of those tiny little pieces on my map puzzle when I was a kid and I would like to prevent other kids from experiencing the same pain.
We should just combine the entire US into one state to prevent confusion. :p

In all seriousness, we could split off Prince William Co, Fairfax Co, Loudon Co, and Arlington Co from Virginia to form the State of Potomac. In my opinion, Northern VA is far closer to Maryland than the rest of the state.

Other interesting options include Absaroka becoming a state, or maybe Forgottonia.
 
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A splitting of California seems the most likely, as others have pointed out. As the most populous state in the Union by far and with the vast differences in regional interests between its northern and southern sections it'd make the most sense and be the least controversial. Statehood for New York would get alot... messier in terms of determining where the metero sprawl starts and ends as to where to draw the line, not to mention robbing New York state of its shoreline. A more viable metro/state split in my opinion would be Chicago from the rest of Illinois.
 

trurle

Banned
Go the opposite way. Combine Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts into one state and Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine into another because having individual states that small is dumb.
The population was more important for statehood historically, compared to area. If you dispose of Maine, you should also dispose of the statehood for Wyoming, Montana, Dakotas and Alaska.

Actually states has a very pronounced population cutoff about population 500,000 today. Therefore, to amalgamate some states, most likely way would be to severely depopulate some of the states. For example, Montana and Wyoming merged into Montaming in the aftermath of the new Yellowstone eruption.
 
Statehood for New York would get alot... messier in terms of determining where the metero sprawl starts and ends as to where to draw the line, not to mention robbing New York state of its shoreline. A more viable metro/state split in my opinion would be Chicago from the rest of Illinois.
Wouldn't Illinois have the exact same problems, though, both in terms of where to draw the line and in terms of (Lake Michigan) shoreline? I think New York would be more feasable, because of the Catskill Mountains providing a geographic division and choke-point for the sprawl.
 
Wouldn't Illinois have the exact same problems, though, both in terms of where to draw the line and in terms of (Lake Michigan) shoreline? I think New York would be more feasable, because of the Catskill Mountains providing a geographic division and choke-point for the sprawl.
Reservoirs in the Catskills are also where NYC gets all its water. How would it be a good idea to give up control of that water to potentially frack-happy upstaters who would need some sort of revenue to replace NYC?
 
Reservoirs in the Catskills are also where NYC gets all its water. How would it be a good idea to give up control of that water to potentially frack-happy upstaters who would need some sort of revenue to replace NYC?
That's the rub with the California state split proposals too; even the proposals to divide Washington along the Cascades run into how Seattle gets a large part of its power from the Grand Coolee Dam.

But in this case, why not put the largely-unpopulated Catskill/Delaware Watershed in the new State of New York City?
 
Wouldn't Illinois have the exact same problems, though, both in terms of where to draw the line and in terms of (Lake Michigan) shoreline? I think New York would be more feasable, because of the Catskill Mountains providing a geographic division and choke-point for the sprawl.

Illinois has access to the Mississippi river network, as well as only losing the relatively less important Great Lake's shipping, so the logistics would be easier to handle in my opinion. NYC also has to deal with being so tightly connected to the broader East Coast long-distance transport system, which creates a thornier issue for the nation as a whole by adding a (let's admit) rather heavy-regulation prone stumbling block on such a key corridor. I suppose the later's more of a personal concern that shouldn't be relevent in this context though.

I'm not saying New York City the State isn't feasible; I'm just saying it creates a lot more questions and national disruption than a similar split between Chicago and its state. This makes it more likely to pass through Congress, who's approval is going to be required for any such split to occur.
 
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