This reminds me of one of my unexpected favorite reads: Jane Jacob's "Cities & the Wealth of Nations" <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Wealth-Nations-Jane-Jacobs/dp/0394729110" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Wealth-Nations-Jane-Jacobs/dp/0...</a><p>She argues that cities (more specifically, city-regions) are the most fundamental economic unit, and many of the problems that national economies encounter are a result of an imbalance created by tying together multiple city-region economies; and tying them together (and together with large rural areas) creates political problems (because their interests do not align). She also points to cities like Singapore & Hong Kong to show how separating a city-region politically and economically from other city-regions, and decoupling large, rural areas allows for optimal economic conditions for cities. She's not a trained economist, but as a city resident, her argument resonated pretty strongly with me -- though, as a practical matter, well, not at all practical.
Residents pay taxes to the feds and the state, some of that money trickles back down to the state, and some of <i>that</i> money trickles back down to the city.<p>Wake me up when we can pay taxes to our city-states, and some of that money trickles up to the state, and some of <i>that</i> money trickles up to the feds.
Google is incorporated in Delaware. Apple (through Braeburn Capital since the mid-2000s) manages most of its assets in Nevada. They're not paying state corporate income taxes to anyone, let alone California. Perhaps they're not using any of the services that California state taxes provide. But it's sort of a complicated argument.<p>The state has a long history. Perhaps this article is a good way to break the deadlock. But realistically, corporations are already acting as if this were a city state (funding their nearby cities much more than the state, etc.).<p>So I don't know. If anything, I think they should move the capital to San Francisco, so that there is better dialogue and involvement with businesses. Similarly, I don't quite understand what the point of Springfield, Illinois, or Albany, New York are. Maybe there's a reason though...
Of course a bay area city state would vote to spend no money on the military industrial complex, and then an orange county city state would invade and conquer them.
Reading this article, I immediately thought of this prediction, where a Russian economist predicted that the US would break into six separate pieces by 2010:<p><a href="http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/us-to-split-into-6-pieces-in-2010---russian-economist-predicts/blog-288429/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/us-to-split-into-6-pie...</a>
"In an age when nations have become so large that their citizens no longer identify with distant governments..."<p>What? it would seem like the complete opposite of this is true. I would say that nationalism and national identity, in the US and most other places in the world, is stronger now than it has been in the past 50 years.
Thank god this wont happen. I live just north of San Luis Obispo and would be left with the same old mess. Better would be to fix the mess in Sacramento. A new governor with a more pragmatic outlook, Jerry Brown, passing the initiative to remove the budget supermajority would be a good start.
It's kind of silly California, 'we', Bay Area, are the best and greatest of all, you need us, bow before us. This sounds too one-sided and most likely, it's not that simple.<p>Anyway, except this reasoning, I'm very keen on the idea of city states, I'd like to try something like that, the city I live in is most likely the first thing I try to identify with, and it is perhaps the authority that affects my life the most (and I even can't vote in the city where I live now…).