Map of the US if 50 states were formed by equal population and split by parallel longitude.
We need some state names for these. A few -stans would be appropriate as well.
So glad it's color blind safe
This still has the representative issue that each of the narrow bands are narrow due to a huge metropolis within them, and the rural population of that band will always live with rules created by the metropolis for the metropolis.
It's a pretty map, though.
And is still makes more sense than "carefully negotiated by powerful ultra rich a few hundred years ago to protect each of their giant egos."
Man, it would be such a massive upgrade for the western US if the borders had been carefully negotiated by... literally anyone, for any reason. They're actually just mostly straight lines drawn at random by people who had never been within a thousand miles of them, and they make absolutely no sense at all.
Also, for the record, I hate the idea that cities and the rural areas surrounding them should be separate and have no shared finances and no say in how each other are run. That's a stupid plan that would immediately result in rural areas having their infrastructure fail, and the cities then all starving. It is a very, very stupid idea, and the very fact that there is a big urban/rural cultural divide is one of the things killing America.
the very fact that there is a big urban/rural cultural divide is one of the things killing America.
I agree wholeheartedly about the problem. But blind highest count vote on every topic is one of the big dividers between rural and urban folks.
Rural folks will simply never have the numbers to influence outcomes in a pure vote count scenario. They're aware of this, and it leads to animosity.
Incidentally, I agree that financial decoupling would be ruinous for both, as well.
The real solution is represtational seats that give everyone a voice - no matter how the voting zone is divided.
I suspect that requires doing away with first-past-the-poll. The winner of that race will almost always be a city person, by raw numeric chance. That's fine, city folks have some good ideas. The problem is when there's no rural voice at the negotiation, at all.
And I think any sensible person realizes we also have to put a stop to all gerrymandering.
Also, we need to give seats to what remains of all of the first nations, while we're at it.
What does equal population mean and what does the different widths indicate?
Are the widths just the original area? Because why then introduce the "equal population" information?
I'm sorry if I'm being a bit thick, but I really don't get it.
It's not you, it's a lack of legend
"Equal population" means each stripe has the same number of residents in it. Wider areas with the same total number of people indicate a lower population density. Closely spaced lines show there are a high population density.
They are talking about how some states are bigger than others while having a smaller population. The width, in this case, means just the area of land which a state would have to be to have a population count equal to all other states.
here's the article
Texastan
Rhode Istan
Mississippistan
Ha, gayyyyuuuuh
2014 article. https://slate.com/culture/2014/10/if-every-u-s-state-had-the-same-population-what-would-the-map-of-america-look-like.html
Nice, there is an even more chaotic version there. (Yes this is clickbait but it's actually true and you'll appreciate the images they made).
Wonder how the little squiggles would affect things if it was straight longitudinal lines
The little squiggles are necessary to ensure election outcomes acceptable to the ultra rich.
I'm joking. (Mostly)
The squiggles are probably county line divisions, and probably simply the smallest existing land divisions with good population data available to make the map from.
I say "mostly joking" because existing county line divisions are already weird in some cases, to ensure election outcomes acceptable to the ultra rich. So there's an unpleasant grain of truth in my joke.
It may be zip code boundaries, given how narrow the NYC strip is. Some of the excessive jankiness in what was Nevada would be because no one lives on a lot of the federally-owned land reserves out there, so they don’t get their own post office, and the catchment area of some zip codes gets huge with weird boundaries.
I nominate 🏳️🌈 as the new flag.
Every time that radial border division map of Europe centered on Vienna comes up, now we've got an American answer in the form of a striped border division.
https://bostonraremaps.com/inventory/maas-utopian-european-union/
https://lemmy.today/pictrs/image/dc2da395-9cf6-4a84-9325-81f8d11bf032.jpeg
French infrastructure is like that too, every road leading to Paris. Probably more countries like this.
Gee, I wonder why no one tried this plan for ever-lasting peace in Europe.
That's a heck of a lot of Church State!