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Notes -
The average democracy is only about 60 years old at this point. The US has, incredibly, managed to make it to 248.
That's more a consequence of FPTP (and in Westminster systems, whipping votes) than anything else. Again, other countries have political parties that manage to pull this kind of voter suppression off just fine.
Separation and/or a more confederated system starts to make more sense here simply because it encourages political competition and innovation in the areas that break off. Otherwise you start to run into certain failure modes of democracy, like "intentionally fail to enforce immigration laws, let the illegals vote, then swing elections that way", or letting the cities merge together politically into one globally homogeneous patchwork rather than retaining solutions tailored to/coupled with that area's unique circumstances (perhaps as a reaction to not being able to get their reforms through).
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