A college professor mine once made the case that an early mistake that our country made was giving statehood away so freely. It would have been better, he reasoned, if statehood had been something earned and not given. He said that he went back and forth as to whether we should have stuck with the thirteen colonies, or maybe given statehood to the original thirteen and various states along other waterways. His model was that there would be states and territories within the continental US. He went on to argue that in addition to all of this, access to the states would be restricted to only the best and brightest of those raised in the territories.
“But why should the territories be places for second-class citizens?” we all asked (or maybe he asked knowing that we wanted to). He suggested a couple things. First, tough luck. It would no more be the responsibility of the states to allow someone from Kansas in than it is for Kansas to allow someone from Mexico in. Alternately, he suggested that it would leave the territories greater latitude to develop themselves. With enough of a push in the rugged and deregulated environment, people would start moving out of the states and into the territories. Which, once that happens, you make it a state in order to stop the bleeding. That would be how statehood would be earned.
As with a lot of things the professor said, this was met with howls at the whole inequality and just UnAmericanness of it. He then put up a map that he’d been keeping hidden throughout this entire discussion, delineating the comparative economic power disparities between regions. His entire plan, he explained, would only be the formalization of America as it currently exists and is headed towards. The best and brightest are pulled towards the coasts. Those that can’t cut the mustard and won’t be servants move to places like Colorado and eventually places like Colorado become “real” states, which he said was imminent. By “real states” he essentially meant blue states (though the term did not exist yet). States that are no longer laughed at in polite company. Colorado was almost there, Nevada would be there within a decade. Texas and Arizona would take a little longer, but eventually they will get enough of the coastal types (and Mexican servants) to push them over. Then they’d be real states, too. The newcomers would pass all sorts of land regulations that would make the cities more expensive. The undesirables would start being priced out. They’d become places of affluent Americans, high-quality immigrants, their servants, and a few legacy admits.
I was reminded of this lecture when I read Virginia Postrel’s post on a growing disconnect:
As I have argued elsewhere, there are two competing models of successful American cities. One encourages a growing population, fosters a middle-class, family-centered lifestyle, and liberally permits new housing. It used to be the norm nationally, and it still predominates in the South and Southwest. The other favors long-term residents, attracts highly productive, work-driven people, focuses on aesthetic amenities, and makes it difficult to build. It prevails on the West Coast, in the Northeast and in picturesque cities such as Boulder, Colorado and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The first model spurs income convergence, the second spurs economic segregation. Both create cities that people find desirable to live in, but they attract different sorts of residents.
This segregation has social and political consequences, as it shapes perceptions — and misperceptions — of one’s fellow citizens and “normal” American life. It also has direct and indirect economic effects. “It’s a definite productivity loss,” Shoag says. “If there weren’t restrictions and you could build everywhere, it would be productive for people to move. You do make more as a waiter in LA than you do in Ohio. Preventing people from having that opportunity to move to these high-income places, making it so expensive to live there, is a loss.” That’s true not only for less-educated workers but for lower earners of all sorts, including the artists and writers who traditionally made places like New York, Los Angeles and Santa Fe cultural centers.
A lot of The Professor’s lectures were rather oblique in nature. I have my doubts that he actually supported the model that he was ostensibly supporting (just like I think he was trying to make a different point when he suggested that immigration policy be dictated by a reality TV show involving paintguns). He also framed the policies as being more deliberate than they are (I think). However, one thing I have noticed is a disconnect on the importance of affordable living. The degree to which red states are sponsored by a lower cost of living, and blue states are sponsored by a higher cost of living, is striking. Cause-effect is muddled, but it’s really one of the less discussed aspects of the red/blue divide. We discuss city versus country, but not what makes Boise different from Portland (Maine), or Phoenix and Santa Fe.
“As I have argued elsewhere, there are two competing models of successful American cities. One encourages a growing population, fosters a middle-class, family-centered lifestyle, and liberally permits new housing…the other favors long-term residents, attracts highly productive, work-driven people, focuses on aesthetic amenities, and makes it difficult to build. “
I didn’t follow this. Are they saying that in the second model people stay there long-term and then leave? That certainly seems to be the case in places like NYC.
I think it’s in reference to policies favoring incumbent residents over would-be residents. Rent-control, building restrictions, etc.
Isn’t the reason cities like NY and LA are expensive to live in is that land near the core is scarce and long commutes are costly? If you look at a list of the densest metros in the US, they’re typically the ones in the second group rather than the first. It’s easy and cheap to build in the first group because they’re not built up yet and it’s still easy to get to the core.
That’s certainly a factor in it. A city that can expand outward doesn’t have the same decision to make with regard to increasing core density. My own (affordable, growing) home city can expand outward to a great degree, and so it’s not life-and-death whether that new Hi-Rise gets built. And there is a lot of resistance to it getting built. Little resistance, though, to building outward.
The relationship with density is somewhat mixed. California, despite being expensive, has fairly friendly policies in terms of building on the outskirts. On the other hand, New Mexico in its pursuit of density is known to be hostile to suburban developers which creates an upward push on housing prices. A number of states with a build-build-build mentality got burned, but others demonstrate that this is not inherently so and all remain relatively inexpensive places to live.
You are right that it’s more complicated than “If only Seattle would build more houses!” but different places do seem to take different attitudes towards growth more generally.
Suburban sprawl inevitably chokes off its own supply; the bandwidth of roads can’t keep up with the necessary trips generated.
LA is actually a very good example; there is plenty of open land on its outskirts, but there are no new freeways being built to provide access, so no one builds there.
Right now, downtown LA is undergoing a huge boom in new rental housing- several thousand units are being planned, in addition to those added in the housing boom from 2001-2007.
I’m not sure where this idea comes from, that places like LA are hostile to new housing.
Linky:
http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2012/06/19/apartment-construction-stars-again-in-downtown-l-a/
and this:
http://www.ladowntownnews.com/news/the-next-downtown-apartment-boom/article_34a95458-f943-11e1-8666-0019bb2963f4.html
Lib60, I mentioned that California has friendly policies on the outskirts but I meant to be more non-committal on the cities themselves.
Capacity may have a hard time keeping up with demand, but a lack of increased capacity makes things worse. LA is dealing with some pretty natural constraints, from what I understand.
I honestly don’t care all that much one way or the other on sprawl. What I do care about is that broadly speaking, the more freedom there is to build then the more gets built and the less congested housing becomes. Sometimes the freedom is restricted by natural constraints, though sometimes it is restricted by the desire of policy-makers of one type of housing over another type of housing.
I happen to be working right at this moment on a new rental apartment building in downtown Los Angeles, so this is an area of particular interest.
The Planning Department has been very helpful in assiting the developer to waive or modify about half a dozen zoning criteria regarding density, height, street setbacks and so on; the Building Department has assigned us a case manager who personally helps shepherd our project through the process.
Aside from bringing us donuts and coffee each morning, I am at a loss as to how Los Angeles could possibly be any more friendly and helpful to new development.
Virginia Postrel is trafficking in stale cliches, about the big sclerotic cities and their bureacratic red tape inhibiting the creation of new housing and jobs. What has long held back the creation of new apartments in Los Angeles is the consumer desire for suburban housing, not urban housing.
And as others have pointed out, it is God who has constrained the development of new suburbs, not the government, by His insistence on the space-time continuum that only allows a fixed number of vehicles to occupy the same roadway at the same time.
I agree that the natural constraints in LA are a problem. Which is why I mentioned it.
Lib60, are you getting this treatment because your project is in the downtown redevelopment zone? Or if I were doing a development project in, say, Eagle Rock or on the Fashionable West Side, would I have a handler to expedite the necessary waivers and compliance pre-checks, too?
Its mostly because there is a concerted political will, beginning from the Mayor’s office on down to the individual Councilmen, to stimulate development; NIMBY and anti-development forces in LA are actually pretty weak.
Out in the suburbs is another story; most breakway cities like Santa Clarita exist primarily because the locals hated the pro-development attitude of LA City or County.
most breakway cities like Santa Clarita exist primarily because the locals hated the pro-development attitude of LA City or County.
I’m pretty familiar with Santa Clarita, yet I assume you actually know something about what you’re talking about, so I’m confused. My take on the SCV is that it’s really pro-development. When I lived there in the early-mid ’90s it was just beginning to take off; now it’s wall-to-wall housing and shopping centers. The view of the SCV City Council and Newhall Ranch and Farm seemed to be, “build it all up before somebody files a lawsuit and stops us!” My wife, who grew up there, finds the place totally bewildering.
So are you talking about a specific type of development? Because I can’t see how you could view the SCV as anti-development in general, while I’m pretty sure there are certain types of development they’ve tried to avoid or discourage.
I grew up in SCV in 1960s to 1980s, and remember that the impetus for its incorporation was the pro-development actions of LA County Supervisors.
Now of course, the political climate may be different. And, as others have pointed out, NIMBYism finds support all across the political spectrum, depending on whose property values are getting boosted/ lowered. So the anti-development forces that fought the market rate apartments suddenly discover a love of luxury single family houses.
And it wouldn’t surprise me that once SCV became its own city, Newhall Land and Farm became the massive fish in a tiny pond.
Downtown LA is really getting a makeover.
While I understand the concern from some of the communities that can’t afford rapidly upscaling property values, there’s an upside to it, too.
From the 2000 to the 2010 census, my neighborhood lost a large number of lower income members… but some percentage of those folks are people who sold their houses for $300K more than they owed and pocketed the change and moved.
Liberty,
Gotcha. My wife reminded me of the initial push for incorporation (which occurred shortly before I got there). She grew up there in the ’70s and ’80s.
Mo,
That’s part of it, but L.A. is not actually a very dense city–much less so than San Francisco, New York or Boston.
L.A. is not actually a very dense city
So many straight lines, no little time.
I don’t perceive a substantial sense that some states are more “real” than others. Nowhere in my travels have I got anything even resembling a whiff of “Oh, those folks in Wyoming think they have their own state out there. That’s cute.”
I do see and hear, from the comfort of my own computer desktop, the occasional notion that “We know better than the locals do about what is in the national interest for this area.” But this seems very much a case of “You provincials have made the wrong decisions and now the rest of us collectively have to correct those mistakes” rather than the notion that “You provincials never had the right to make that decision in the first place.” (E.g., “What’s The Matter With Kansas?”)
Maybe not Wyoming, but there are some doubts about Idaho. (I’m mostly looking for an excuse to link to that piece rather than actually trying to make an argument with it.)
The perceptions, though, are largely a product of intramural competition within states (“Our state is better than your state. We have culture! We are driving the economy while you are latching on!”) with a notable imbalance between the prestige states and the others.
It’s not that important in the greater scheme of things. The big thing that The Professor was talking about was the extent to which the sorting leads some states to attract the elite while others attract the modern-day yeomen with families and middle-class expectations.
With the sparsely populated west, it’s sort of an issue with talk about how we should just do away with statehood and complaints about the Senate and the equal representation therein. That’s still not the same thing, but also an aside from the larger issue. It’s not that the states aren’t states, but they are often viewed as negligible or inferior. Some of this is mere intramural competition (our state is better than your state) going both ways, though with so many of the cultural and economic powerhouses being located in concentrated areas
During the ten years that I spent as a Great Plains guy living on the East Coast, I thought there was a pronounced sense among easterners that many of the western states weren’t “real” states. After telling someone that I was originally from Nebraska, to hear them come back with, “Oh, yeah, that’s out there with Ohio and Nevada and those states” seems meaningful. I was often left with the impression that with just a bit of work, I could convince them that Indian raids still happened from time to time once you got outside the cities. As someone originally from Nebraska, maybe I was just overly sensitive.
“You provincials have made the wrong decisions and now the rest of us collectively have to correct those mistakes,” always annoys me, as so many of the ‘wrong decisions’ were made by easterners looking out for eastern interests. And many of the ‘wrong decisions’ pale in comparison to decisions that easterners made about their own part of the country.
To be fair, some of that is rational ignorance. I get frustrated when people don’t have what I would consider a rudimentary knowledge of my environs, but before I moved out here I really didn’t, either. There’s not all that much reason to.
This does create problems on a wider scale, though. The line between rational ignorance and devising policies for places that are… foreign… is rather limited. It’s one of the reasons why I consider the Senate to be important (even if it may be, at current, somewhat too important).
This is another reason why I think we should move the US capital to Nebraska, though.
Perhaps the biggest advantage of this would be that Congress would show up in January, do its work in six months or so, and then adjourn for the year :^) On a related note, it appears that Denver is getting both a major CIA presence, as well as a branch of the Patent Office.
I do think that having a capital that legislators are itching to get out of is but one benefit of The Nebraska Plan.
Have you ever been to DC in the summer? I don’t think anyone wants to be here either.
Really random thoughts…
There are always unintended consequences. Suppose that the deal from the beginning was “It may take you decades to earn statehood.” Do the Republics of Texas and California enter under that condition? Or do they stay independent and start cutting deals with the neighboring territories? Does Oregon throw its lot in with California, or with that bunch way over there on the other side of the Rockies, the Great Plains, and the Mississippi River? The Mississippi and the Rockies seem like natural dividing lines, with an open question of how much Texas carves out of the Plains (and northern Mexico if they get into an acquisitive mood). How much do things change when the big oil discoveries made in Texas and California don’t belong to the US (one can make an argument that an important reason the US was on the winning side in WWII was the East Texas oil field).
I’m not positive about this, but I *think* Texas and California were In Like Flynn or at least fast-tracked. I’m pretty sure he would have wanted to carve them up, but logistically speaking if both states were to have insisted on unity, I don’t think that would have been a dealbreaker. I’d have to track down the notes to the class. Which I kept! But I actually looked for them so that I could scan in the maps he presented.
I remember that he mentioned fast-tracking West Florida, Acadiana, and Gadsden to fortify ports and the borders. I remember having to look up what those three entities were. My mental image of the map left no border but Canada’s unguarded. (Seems kind of lame to say “I don’t remember” but this many years later, it’s significant that I remember any of this at all.)
I remember one real weak point of his plan (which, I have to mention, I think was as likely as not a leg of a stool of a couple different arguments and not an actual argument in itself) was thinking that the West Coast would have a hard time staying aligned with what I believe would have been a real East Coast governing bias. I can think of a number of ways that California could have – and I think would have – ultimately wanted to go its own way with the western states and accomplished that.
I mentioned those two, and Texas in particular, because of the bit “Colorado was almost there, Nevada would be there within a decade. Texas and Arizona would take a little longer…”. I interpreted that as meaning that at some point in the not-too-distant past, all four would have still been in the “territory” phase. Presumably he would have perceived Arizona as backsliding over the last decade, becoming less rather than more ready. The Arizona state government seems to be more than a little ticked off at the way they’re treated these days, even with statehood :^)
I may not have been terribly clear on that part. Colorado, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada were talked about in the second part of the lecture: whether they would achieve respectability in the current regime, not where they would have been in his proposed regime.
I can think of a number of ways that California could have – and I think would have – ultimately wanted to go its own way with the western states and accomplished that.
Heck, I’m convinced that on the basis of energy concerns and policy, in about 25 years California and the western states are going to begin considering the notion that they would be better off if they went their own way. I know I’m out on the lunatic fringe on this — no one needs to bother telling me that I’m crazy, or that it couldn’t work for this or that reason. Nevertheless, I think it’s a logical outcome of a number of trends.
First question is… do they let the other western states go with them, or do they say “What use have we for Montana?”
I think the primary logistical issue I have is the lack of states’ ability to secede and an unwillingness to go to war over it. Maybe it’s one of those things where they convince Hawaii to do it (Hawaii being the state with the strongest case for secession) in order to set the precedent.
I take an energy and water perspective. I admit that it’s narrow, but I think those are the dominant issues over the next 25-50 years. Montana is perhaps the hardest case, if you consider the state as a whole. California wants Oregon and Washington; Oregon and Washington want Idaho and western Montana because they want to control the entire Columbia drainage. Eastern Montana is a harder decision. If America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, then Montana is Ghawar, with roughly 25% of US coal reserves. There’s also a lot of wind on the east side of the Rockies that is a natural match for the demand along the Front Range, freeing up resources farther west to power California. If California decides it needs/wants Denver as the city on its eastern frontier, then California also wants eastern Montana.
The Great Plains have been depopulating for most of 80 years (peak population was around 1930). At some point, 500 miles of empty space between East and West matters. If you buy into the effects of global warming, deepening of the Sonora and Chihuahua deserts split Mexico and the American West (and raise really interesting questions about Phoenix and Las Vegas in the longer term). At some point, I believe, the eastern part of the US has to decide that it’s going to either (a) compete with California for western energy resources or (b) let the West go.
I suspect that it would almost have to be all-or-nothing between states. So Colorado would be a question? I thought that would be a definitive “yes” but that some of the states leading there, and north and south of there, would be question marks.
It’s worth noting that the population trend in the Dakotas has reversed itself. Growth around Bakken is the product on specific circumstance, but Fargo and Sioux Falls are growing impressively. Drought effects of global warming could reverse this, however.
I’m not sure what you mean by this:
It’s a long complicated story, mostly about electricity — I’m trying to write a book. Too long to try to tell convincingly in a comment. There are three main points to the “compete” part. (1) In about 25 years, the East is going to be looking at a growing and difficult electricity supply problem. (2) The various methods for addressing that problem all require that the East impose its will on the interior West in ways that the locals will not take kindly to. (3) California will already have been doing the same thing to the interior West, but on a scale that is much less intrusive. Eastern attempts to exploit Western power sources will put the East in direct competition with California.
If California can’t solve its internal budget problems soon enough (which will require residential property values to start rising at an appreciable rate) then I’m going to become less facetious about forfeiting statehood and reverting to territorial status.
Speaking on behalf of the rest of the country, that won’t work for us. We need your income tax dollars more than the seizure of legislative influence you would be sacrificing.
Damnit! Now I need a Plan C.
At turns I wish current geological forces would hurry up and move the Golden State up into Canadian jurisdiction.
I am looking forward to California’s state legislative results this year. Given that gerrymandering has been reduced, and that that seems likely to cost the Republicans some previously “protected” seats, California may be in a position to fix its budget problems next year (which I view as having grown out of the fact that a simple majority could increase spending, but it took a super-majority to increase revenues).
Isn’t this somewhat how Russia runs things with various levels of oblasts, republics, okrugs, and federal cities?
Can’t say it really say I’m a fan, as all it seems to do is make sure Moscow keeps all the political power.
Keeping Washington and eastern culture powerful was, I think, a part of what he was going for.
When I was reading Hunger Games, one of the thoughts I had was that The Professor would have loved to be an adviser to President Snow.
I think it’s worth noting that “Washington” and “Eastern culture” (and also ‘Eastern elites’) were not close to synonymous nor had big overlapping Venn diagrams until a little after 1930 or so.
“With enough of a push in the rugged and deregulated environment, people would start moving out of the states and into the territories. Which, once that happens, you make it a state in order to stop the bleeding. That would be how statehood would be earned.”
Also, in a sense, this is exactly what happened, except for when the politics of slavery and other politics interfered with it.
(and post-war, churning out newly minted Republican senators as early and often as possible is indeed how (North) Eastern elites maintained their power until the Progressive era).
I think, under The Professor’s map, the consolidation of eastern culture would happen more quickly than it otherwise did.
Also, in a sense, this is exactly what happened, except for when the politics of slavery and other politics interfered with it.
Yeah, though the bar would be set a lot higher. I suspect that they would take the mineral wealth of Colorado, but not grant it statehood to whatever extent that was possible. Historically, the US has set the standard for statehood quite low.
Because I’m like Chunk with Rocky Road in all the alt history and how the states got their shapes stuff, I just want to echo Mr. Cain’s argument above that either your professor’s plan would be cast aside due to politics right quick, or else we would have a significantly different (and no longer) United States.
Westward expansion was an unstoppable force. That the British tried was one of the causes of the Revolution. Then, the first and second generation of states (after the original 13/15) was all based on balancing slave state power with free state power.
If all that area west of the Appalachians was still retained under Congressional authority by the 10’s or 20’s – land that the government needed to sell to pay off the war debt, remember – the debate over ‘slavery in the territories’ gets pushed a generation earlier to unclear consequences. More importantly, if the territories are going to be perpetually second class citizens, the push to go their own way is a heck of lot stronger, and very likely more successful.
I agree, Kolohe. It’s hard for me to imagine the west staying with the east with a wide branch of nothingness with second-tier status in between. It’s the big logistical problem I have with the vision.
I don’t think that keeping the territories themselves in check would necessarily be a problem if the best and brightest among them end up relocating primarily to states. If they start relocating to a particular territory for some reason or another, that’s when statehood happens.
I don’t know how solvent it would be. I think the bigger issue is West vs East. The Civil War counterfactuals are also a pretty big unknown. On the one hand, fewer southern states makes any incipient Confederacy harder. On the other hand, the southern states would be able to reach out to the territories creating a monster of a situation. The western territories were, by and large, more sympathetic to the south than the north.
Russia’s internal subdivisions are the federalism equivalent of five-bean soup. I’ve never been a particular fan of five-bean soup. So, hey Ivan! Either have political subdivisions, or don’t. Trust us, we know better than you what is in your national interest.
I know your general bent is East-West, but I find that a lot of these arguments map more sensibly onto North-South. Having lived on the East Coast for a while (and in the North all my life), I find that the states that actually mystify people are places like Mississippi, not Wyoming. To the extent that Nebraska and Kansas get lumped in to this, I’d say it’s more for their Southern character than their Western character.
Of course, as I’m someone who has nothing but contempt for the South, maybe I’m just trying to make this argument fit my own worldview.
The guts of this (excluding The Professor’s proposal) is primarily Cheap Vs Expensive and to an extent Wealth Vs Not, more than anything. That gives it both North/South and East/West(-But-Not-Pacific) axes. I agree that the South is viewed as The Enemy in a way that the west is generally not.
Although, again, I’m sure that if the West were more heavily populated than it would be thought of more like the South. As has been pointed out, even California would be a red state if it weren’t for the bright blue haloes around the coastal cities.
That’s because the South’s views on a lot of things really, really rile up the rest of the country.