Hi Patrick, I always enjoy reading your work. I’m looking forward to more on regional communities. I’ve been thinking lately that the US is too large and complex to govern well. Maybe regions like Cascadia would work, though I worry that lots of people in our rural areas wouldn’t want to be part of a government led by Seattle and Portland. And some cities like Austin and Atlanta wouldn’t want to be part of their regions. Maybe we should try city-states: <https://bostonreview.net/articles/josiah-ober-learning-from-athens/> The rural areas could have their own forms of local government. The federal government could still set minimum standards for important externalities like pollution. And the city-states could use their superior economies to buy or incentivize better behavior in the rural areas.
Hi Patrick, I always enjoy reading your work. I’m looking forward to more on regional communities. I’ve been thinking lately that the US is too large and complex to govern well. Maybe regions like Cascadia would work, though I worry that lots of people in our rural areas wouldn’t want to be part of a government led by Seattle and Portland. And some cities like Austin and Atlanta wouldn’t want to be part of their regions. Maybe we should try city-states: <https://bostonreview.net/articles/josiah-ober-learning-from-athens/> The rural areas could have their own forms of local government. The federal government could still set minimum standards for important externalities like pollution. And the city-states could use their superior economies to buy or incentivize better behavior in the rural areas.
And here’s a new article about abolishing states: https://theap.substack.com/p/abolish-states