The Problem With the USA's Borders

you can tell the map is well made because the lines are very squiggly

As a West Virginia I founded very offensive that you said we always find our way to the bottom of the list, when it comes to overdoses and obesity we are at the top

To me, as a Canadian, this whole video feels like "12 Creative Ways to Start another Civil War."

Dividing states by rivers means that many cities will lie in two states, which can be problematic, when it comes to finances.

As a german i can say that we redrawn a lot of borders at municipality level. As a european i can only say that trying to move a border usually results in a few decades of war

I think the biggest news here is we're going to have Dust Bowl 2.0 coming up in the 2030s. Fitting

West Virginia was actually very successful at one point in its history. No, it's never been near the richest of the country, but people lived well, we had industry in timber and manufacturing. We were growing rapidly along with the rest of the country. We never seemed to fully recover from the great depression. The areas that did, mostly along the Ohio River, dried up after manufacturing left after the 80s (that area is like an extension of the rust belt).

The water based map would be amazing, dividing by bio-regions would also be cool, honestly your map you made or the water based map I think would be much better than what's currently being used

The irony of combining Nevada with Utah can't be overstated. Las Vegas: the casino capital of America. Utah: gambling is still illegal there.

"Leave border drawing to geographers, not politians" -Kyle, Geography King

5:27 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗵𝗶𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗮𝘀

The only way I could see something like this happening would be due to some sort of SEVERE decades long drought. State borders won’t changed until every other possibility has been exhausted

19:06, *Texans screaming internally as Missouri becomes twice the size of former Texas*

As a former Nevadan, I find it hilarious that in 2014 we scored 51 out of 50 in education.

I think following the natural terrain is a great idea. Not just for boundaries but for building the electrical grid, irrigation technology and roads ways.

As a land surveyor this would be an absolute nightmare to accomplish

I love how all these states combine, and then there’s just CALIFORNIA.

> Starts talking about Rivers borders "Ah he must be near the end of the episode" Checks Timestamp 👀

I realise this video is mainly a thought experiment, just wanted to add one anecdotal point as to why the Ogallala/Big State method wouldn't be as cut and dry as it was presented. Namely, this is just because the Great Plains states are far from one and the same. Even though they're often panned together as "the flyover states" and do have similarly structured economies, the values of the state's vary greatly. Nebraska for example has a relatively high tax rate which has fed back into it having good scores for education, infrastructure, etc. while the same can't be said for nearby Kansas, South, or North Dakota (e.g. the Kansas Experiment) Additionally the map included Denver in this state which has a wildly different cultural landscape than the Ogallala/Missouri/Great Plains at large. Ultimately I think, perhaps unfortunately, the time has passed for any major state remaps like this; as each state has it's own culture and state laws that vary greatly even between neighboring states.

One problem I saw with the USGS water map was that northern NYS, specifically Clinton and Essex county were part of the Atlantic basin and not the Great Lake basin. So while it’s true that half of southern Essex County might be part of the Hudson River much more of it drains into Lake Champlain and thus into the Great Lakes system. But then it was a tiny map and the actual map could be correct.