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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2633 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 31, 2025

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There has been some discussion of the DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia) area recently. Does anyone have any opinions on this proposed reorganization of that region?

I would draw the dividing line in Virginia to include only Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William, and Fauquier counties in the new expanded DC. In my experience, it starts to feel like the South about halfway to Charlottesville. I'd also push the borders of the now shrunken New York a little farther north and east into Connecticut.

Anyone suggesting Marylanders become parts of other states underestimates how much Marylanders love the Maryland flag.

I think the current borders are a feature. The fact that a decent chunk of NYC metro is in New Jersey and Long Island is in New York, but not in New York City keeps the NYC mayor and council in check. If they go full retard, the businesses can just relocate their offices to the other bank of the Hudson.

If he's worried about keeping metros intact, the best way to do this is by pro sports allegiance. Just look at the local media in every area, and see which teams from the NFL, NHL, MLB, and NBA they cover. Then make a map of as many states as you want, reserving the right to break out rural areas where allegiances might not be as strong.

This is the most natural way to coalesce pre-existing cultural affinities, but how would you account for differences in the importance of allegiances? Delco is both Eagles and Sixers country, but it cares about the Eagles vastly more. I imagine there are places this might become relevant.

Delco isn't the best example because it's Philadelphia any way you slice it. It would be more of a judgment call than anything else, though it only really applies to places with allegiances to teams in two different cities (neither city being the place itself), and in my experience those are usually pretty weak allegiances. For instance, I was chatting with locals at a bar in Clinton County many years ago, and I asked this exact question. The answer I got was "If there's any baseball team people follow here it's the Yankees, but we don't really follow hockey. Steelers definitely." So I'd include them in Pittsburgh and not New York because he made it sound like the Steelers were bigger there than the Yankees, even though there's no way I'd have previously considered it part of the Pittsburgh co-prosperity sphere.

That being said, I'm also taking the position that not all places have allegiances to all sports. People who make those maps try to include everywhere, but I can tell you right now that Pittsburgh does not have an NBA team. The maps lump us in with the Cavs, but the only sense that anyone here is a Cavs fan is that we might root for them if they're in the championship, and they'll play a poorly-attended exhibition game here once every decade or two. But it's not like the Post-Gazette has a Cavs beat writer or they regularly show highlights on the local news.

That being said, I'm also taking the position that not all places have allegiances to all sports.

College allegiances also probably play a role.

I somewhat like it but I'd hate if I became part of the DC voting block. Northern Virginia laws sort of work because they are held back by the rest of the state from going full crazy blue.

When they are not held back you get a situation like Maryland, which has to deal with the Baltimore voting block and is dysfunctional.

You can see this dynamic with where a bunch of people live, it's the Virginia side that has grown massively both in population and wealth.

I somewhat like it but I'd hate if I became part of the DC voting block. Northern Virginia laws sort of work because they are held back by the rest of the state from going full crazy blue.

It's going to tip full crazy blue in our lifetime. I'd rather get ahead of that before it's too late. That said, looking at the map, having some new DC centered state stretch all the way to I-81 and then down past Fredericksburg is fucking insane. Give them to Reston tops, leave Leesburg alone. Much less Front Royal.

It's going to tip full crazy blue in our lifetime.

.. what's that going to mean? You guys seem to be having what looks like a counter-revolution right now.

having some new DC-centered state stretch all the way to I-81 and then down past Fredericksburg is fucking insane

I drew this map on the basis of the Census Bureau's delineation of metropolitan areas, which in turn is based on objective commuting statistics.

Just because some wackos commute 2 hours every day each way to Front Royal doesn't mean that it's culturally part of DC.

Nobody commutes into DC from Front Royal. They have a zoom job.... for now....

In my first Pittsburgh post I mentioned a "greater co-prosperity sphere". I feel like if we're creating states based on metro areas we need to include the entire greater co-prosperity sphere. I'm not from the area, but I've visited often enough to have a pretty good handle on things, and it definitely feels like Fredericksburg is where the gravitational pull shifts from DC to Richmond, and the idea that Leesburg wouldn't be part of DC seems ridiculous. Front Royal is another matter entirely. There's definitely some pull, but it's a weak pull, and it feels closer to places like Roanoke and Harrisonburg which I wouldn't call part of DC at all.

But if you're worried about politics I'll offer a compromise — all the parts of Northern Virginia that you don't want under the yoke of the People's Republic of Douglass can become part of West Virginia.

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