The Birth of the American City-state

[Razgovory]

If the cities were self-governing and kept their own revenue how would the rural populations get any kind of government services?

I haven't read the article, but I suspect the anticipated outcome is to have businesses move to the suburbs.

That really just causes a city to move, eventually causing the same "problem" as before, to many liberals in the state.

[Valmy]

S essentially what they're proposing is to create a prison for all the godless socialists, social liberals, centrists, and other gay/woman/muslim/darky/whatever else true blue conservatives hate enablers.
The cities are declared independent, the businesses retreat to a ring around them, walling them in and protecting the countryside from their influence.

Yes that is the plan.  It is basically gerrymandering.  That is the way of American Democracy: how can we draw the lines so we win?

[Neil]

Presumably without the votes from the cities, the state could pass laws banning gayness, blackness, womanness and educationness.

[Valmy]

That really just causes a city to move, eventually causing the same "problem" as before, to many liberals in the state.

They can just keep expanding the City States doing this until they get 100% Democrats cities with 51% Republican dominated States, thus fulfilling the Gerrymandering playbook.

[Ed Anger]

Presumably without the votes from the cities, the state could pass laws banning gayness, blackness, womanness and educationness.

I'd like to round up the uppity women. They need reeducation.

[Admiral Yi]

S essentially what they're proposing is to create a prison for all the godless socialists, social liberals, centrists, and other gay/woman/muslim/darky/whatever else true blue conservatives hate enablers.
The cities are declared independent, the businesses retreat to a ring around them, walling them in and protecting the countryside from their influence.

[garbon]

I'm going to the country. I'm going to eat a lot of peaches.

And get diarrhea, since what peaches may be on the trees are nowhere near being ripe.

But ... peaches come from a can, they were put their by a man in the factory downtown.

Good peaches don't come in cans.

*sigh*

[Tonitrus]

Why?

It's just a lame attempt at super-gerrymandering large cities into separate states, with the blatant goal of making them represented by a minority in the Senate vs. the remaining "rural-only" states, and making their population less relevant.  And the proposer doesn't even hide that their reasoning is solely based on "wah wah, we cannot win elections against people living in large cities, so we have to diminish their political influence somehow).

If they were really pro-Constitution as they claim, they would simply go about creating new states from these cities under the procedures that already exist in the very same constitution that protects their 2nd Amendment rights (of course, that means they have no prayer of that happening).

[alfred russel]

That really just causes a city to move, eventually causing the same "problem" as before, to many liberals in the state.

Not really in Atlanta's case.

The metro area of Atlanta is over something like 15 counties and a bunch of "cities". The inner city core is the only place concentrated communities of poverty can effectively live--for instance, the major hospital serving the poor is there, and it is the only place with anything resembling reasonable public transportation.

The core part of the city is stuck with high taxes to cover the services, and as a result most of the major businesses in the metro area are now in the suburbs. The metro area has been rapidly growing, but in the core of the city significant amounts of office space is now unfilled (the largest skyscraper recently went bankrupt). Wealthier parts of the metro area want nothing to do with Atlanta, and have been separately incorporating and trying to secede for quite some time. The suburbs have made conscious decisions not to build public transportation that connects to the city (even if they don't have to pay for it) in order to keep poorer elements from being able to move into their areas.

I don't know if the results are good. Massive amounts of sprawl and traffic that is reaching absurd levels. However, economically the metro area has done well. There is a limit to how far it can go though. A lot of Georgia voters may not care, but if the hospitals serving the poor go under, it is going to be a public health crisis that hits everyone.

[citizen k]

The author seems to think that cities still leech off of the countryside like it's the middle ages. The opposite has been true for quite a while. This would cause massive social and economic disruptions and ruin the country.

Cities make their own food?

[garbon]

The author seems to think that cities still leech off of the countryside like it's the middle ages. The opposite has been true for quite a while. This would cause massive social and economic disruptions and ruin the country.

Cities make their own food?

Paying for products = leeching?

[Razgovory]

The author seems to think that cities still leech off of the countryside like it's the middle ages. The opposite has been true for quite a while. This would cause massive social and economic disruptions and ruin the country.

Cities make their own food?

It's cheaper to import it then from overseas then to buy it from the countryside.

[Razgovory]

That really just causes a city to move, eventually causing the same "problem" as before, to many liberals in the state.

Not really in Atlanta's case.

The metro area of Atlanta is over something like 15 counties and a bunch of "cities". The inner city core is the only place concentrated communities of poverty can effectively live--for instance, the major hospital serving the poor is there, and it is the only place with anything resembling reasonable public transportation.

The core part of the city is stuck with high taxes to cover the services, and as a result most of the major businesses in the metro area are now in the suburbs. The metro area has been rapidly growing, but in the core of the city significant amounts of office space is now unfilled (the largest skyscraper recently went bankrupt). Wealthier parts of the metro area want nothing to do with Atlanta, and have been separately incorporating and trying to secede for quite some time. The suburbs have made conscious decisions not to build public transportation that connects to the city (even if they don't have to pay for it) in order to keep poorer elements from being able to move into their areas.

I don't know if the results are good. Massive amounts of sprawl and traffic that is reaching absurd levels. However, economically the metro area has done well. There is a limit to how far it can go though. A lot of Georgia voters may not care, but if the hospitals serving the poor go under, it is going to be a public health crisis that hits everyone.

I'm not surprised that white southerners don't want to have anything to do with blacks.

[Eddie Teach]

Why should you be, when white Midwesterners don't either, by the same logic.

[Jacob]

Somehow I doubt the PRC is the model here.

I'm not so sure. It seems like the hard-core conservatives in the US are pretty comfortable with an autocratic elite ruling the country and providing a business environment where business  regulations and governance don't apply to those with the right political connections.