Divided We Stand

What would California look like broken in
three? Or a Republic of New England? With the federal government
reaching for ever more power, redrawing the map is enticing, says Paul
Starobin
By PAUL STAROBIN

• Wall Street Journal Online
• U.S. NEWS
• JUNE 13, 2009

Remember
that classic Beatles riff of the 1960s: “You say you want a
revolution?” Imagine this instead: a devolution. Picture an America
that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in
freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional
republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of
the society.

There might be an austere Republic of New England, with a natural
strength in higher education and technology; a Caribbean-flavored
city-state Republic of Greater Miami, with an anchor in the Latin
American economy; and maybe even a Republic of Las Vegas with
unfettered license to pursue its ambitions as a global gambling,
entertainment and conventioneer destination. California? America’s
broke, ill-governed and way-too-big nation-like state might be saved,
truly saved, not by an emergency federal bailout, but by a merciful
carve-up into a trio of republics that would rely on their own
ingenuity in making their connections to the wider world. And while
we’re at it, let’s make this project bi-national—economic logic
suggests a natural multilingual combination between Greater San Diego
and Mexico’s Northern Baja, and, to the Pacific north, between Seattle
and Vancouver in a megaregion already dubbed “Cascadia” by economic
cartographers.

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