Is NYC the most geopolitically diverse city in the US?

[Docere]

^ That certainly would change the dynamic of "is Cleveland Northeastern or Midwestern"?

[TempleGuy1000]

Connecticut settlers tried claiming all kinds of territories. Pennsylvania put them in their place.

Pennamite–Yankee War

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Docere

^ That certainly would change the dynamic of "is Cleveland Northeastern or Midwestern"?

and like buffalo, it'd still be fully "great lakes" either way.


it would've been weird to have a US state that was split apart into two wholely seprate entities with other states in between.

yeah, there's michigan's two peninsulas i guess, but they're only seperated by the 5 miles of water of the straits of mackinac and they have the great bridge tying them together anyway.

having a section of "connecticut" cut-off off from the home state and flung several hundred miles west into the interior would've have been very odd indeed.

[Gantz]

After the midterms, NYC is even more "purple" than when this thread started.
Practically majority of the gains for Republicans happened in NY.

[Steely Dan]

.

Originally Posted by Gantz

After the midterms, NYC is even more "purple" than when this thread started.
Practically majority of the gains for Republicans happened in NY.

For whatever reason, NY dems aren't as good at gerrymandering house districts as IL dems are.

IL dems won every competitive house district, such that 14 of IL's 17 reps next session will be dems. The 3 lone red IL reps are from the 3 ruby-red downstate corn-belt districts and were all won by 40+ point margins.

IL dems also hold every single major state-wide elected office, including governor and both US senators, along with holding super-majorities in both houses of the state legislature.

One party rule through and through.

The IL GOP is in shambles at the moment, and has been ever since trumpism took over the party nationally.

[Docere]

How far from Chicago proper do you have to go to conceivably get a GOP-friendly district? The collar counties are quite blue now, there's very little Republican geography in Chicago. NY has Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn, Staten Island, a good amount of Long Island etc.

[Steely Dan]

The closest a red US house district now gets to Chicago is Darrin Lahood's 16th district.

All of the light blue districts on the map below were specifically drawn to give dems a narrow edge in all them, amplifyimg urban voices in Chicagoland, and in downstate urban areas like Rockford, quad cities, Peoria, Champaign, Springfield and the metro east.


Source: wikipedia

[mrnyc]

nys gov race results. basically the usual handful of italian and conservative jewish trumpie neighborhoods went all in for zeldin, the rest hochul.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

nys gov race results. basically the usual handful of italian and conservative jewish trumpie neighborhoods went all in for zeldin, the rest hochul.

Looks to me like Zeldin did better in Asian neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, though the residual white population is quite Republican in that area, so it could be differential turnout.

[FromSD]

[QUOTE=Steely Dan;9799560].

For whatever reason, NY dems aren't as good at gerrymandering house districts as IL dems are.

As I recall, the Democrats in the New York legislature drew up new districts that were aggressively gerrymandered to produce Democratic gains. But the state courts threw out those maps. The revised maps were much more unfavorable to the Democrats and in least one case put two Democratic incumbents in the same congressional district. I guess there are constitutional limits to how much you can do partisan gerrymandering in New York, which isn’t the case in Texas, Florida (or Illinois?).

[Crawford]

[QUOTE=FromSD;9799966]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

.

For whatever reason, NY dems aren't as good at gerrymandering house districts as IL dems are.

As I recall, the Democrats in the New York legislature drew up new districts that were aggressively gerrymandered to produce Democratic gains. But the state courts threw out those maps. The revised maps were much more unfavorable to the Democrats and in least one case put two Democratic incumbents in the same congressional district. I guess there are constitutional limits to how much you can do partisan gerrymandering in New York, which isn’t the case in Texas, Florida (or Illinois?).

Right, the Dems in NY tried to gerrymander the state, GOP-style. But unlike in the red states, the courts actually intervened, just weeks before the election, and rewrote the boundaries to be massively GOP-favorable. The court ruling wasn't surprising, but the court-ordered map was. They put many of the most popular Dem candidates in the same seats, and put the most vulnerable Dem candidates in the most competitive seats. And, again, right before the election.

You can look at it as a case of massive Dem hubris/overreach or a case of unfair judicial intervention. In any case, it's yet another example of how this country is increasingly nonfunctional, with 50 different operating systems. The GOP House majority is basically entirely due to a shocking NY State court decision. If the NY courts had ruled as in other states, the Dems would have the House. The Dems share a lot of blame too, bc they never fought the decision. They just threw up their hands and said they'd deal with it after the election. Too late. And, of course, if they never did the silly gerrymandering, we wouldn't be here today.

[Crawford]

Also, the Dems have a LOT of work to do among white ethnics in the tri-state. The only white neigborhood in Brooklyn that went blue (outside of gentrified Brooklyn) is Bay Ridge. And Bay Ridge is more of a hybrid gentrified/white ethnic enclave. Basically the whole southern half of Brooklyn went red, and that's even with significant Chinese populations voting blue.

If you look at the Brooklyn map, the deep red areas are basically all Orthodox Jewish, and the light red areas are some combination of Italian, former Soviet and Chinese. It's dumb, but if the Dems would just leave the Orthodox alone to evade the laws on K-12 schooling, like the GOP relentlessly promise, they'd probably win those neighborhoods.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and like buffalo, it'd still be fully "great lakes" either way.


it would've been weird to have a US state that was split apart into two wholely seprate entities with other states in between.

yeah, there's michigan's two peninsulas i guess, but they're only seperated by the 5 miles of water of the straits of mackinac and they have the great bridge tying them together anyway.

having a section of "connecticut" cut-off off from the home state and flung several hundred miles west into the interior would've have been very odd indeed.

Was there ever a dispute between Michigan and Wisconsin over who should claim the upper penninsula? What is the history of this dispute? How was it settled? I guess Michigan got statehood first, so that gave them an advantage over any Wisconsin claim to the U.P.? Is Isle Royal considered to be part of Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota, even though it is entirely a U.S. National Park, and actually closest to Ontario, Canada?

"Papa" Earnest Hemingway loved the U.P., and I love it too. Some of his "Nick Adams" short stories based on his youthful experiences are set there, as well as on the northern part of the lower penninsula. Strangely, he never went back after he went away to Italy to be an ambulance driver in WW1. I guess he felt he knew the place well, and wanted to experience new things. And he did that times ten! What a life! Maybe a return would have been sad for him after all he had been through.

I was there decades ago doing geological research. One place I never got to was Mackinac Island. On my bucket list. However I do visit virtually every time I watch the film "Somewhere in Time", now a cult classic.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and like buffalo, it'd still be fully "great lakes" either way.


it would've been weird to have a US state that was split apart into two wholely seprate entities with other states in between.

yeah, there's michigan's two peninsulas i guess, but they're only seperated by the 5 miles of water of the straits of mackinac and they have the great bridge tying them together anyway.

having a section of "connecticut" cut-off off from the home state and flung several hundred miles west into the interior would've have been very odd indeed.

Michigan’s UP isn’t the best example, you can drive to/from it from the other part of MI without leaving the state. This is worse:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East...re_of_Virginia

[Steely Dan]

^ you can also drive from regular Virginia to Delmarva Virginia across the Chesapeake bay bridge-tunnel.

Not fundamentally different than going from Michigan's LP to the UP across Mighty Mac, just a bit longer (17 miles vs. 5 miles).


Additionally, Delmarva Virginia is only 662 sq. miles vs. the 16,377 sq. miles of Michigan's UP. Those are different scales of geography.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Was there ever a dispute between Michigan and Wisconsin over who should claim the upper penninsula? What is the history of this dispute? How was it settled? I guess Michigan got statehood first, so that gave them an advantage over any Wisconsin claim to the U.P.? Is Isle Royal considered to be part of Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota, even though it is entirely a U.S. National Park, and actually closest to Ontario, Canada?

Blame Ohio. The state of Ohio and Michigan Territory squabbled over who would get the port of Toledo in the almost bloodless Toledo War due to ambiguous boundary definitions. To prevent rising tensions, the federal government offered a deal where Michigan would give up Toledo in exchange for the Upper Peninsula (Wisconsin, being wilderness, was in no position to object).

As for states in discontinuous pieces, Massachusetts had the District of Maine within its borders until Maine became a separate state in 1820. So for the first 45 years or so of the US, New Hampshire was the meat in a Massachusetts sandwich.

ETA: Isle Royale is in Michigan. Keweenaw County to be precise.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Isle Royale is in Michigan. Keweenaw County to be precise.

And though not many people would guess it, Isle Royale is actually the 3rd largest island in the lower 48 at 206 sq. miles (all of it national park land, along with hundreds of other surrounding smaller islands and islets).

Only New York's Long Island and Texas's Padre Island are larger in the lower 48. (Trying to bring things back on topic to long island's strangely red political leaning these days).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox

Blame Ohio. The state of Ohio and Michigan Territory squabbled over who would get the port of Toledo in the almost bloodless Toledo War due to ambiguous boundary definitions. To prevent rising tensions, the federal government offered a deal where Michigan would give up Toledo in exchange for the Upper Peninsula (Wisconsin, being wilderness, was in no position to object).

As for states in discontinuous pieces, Massachusetts had the District of Maine within its borders until Maine became a separate state in 1820. So for the first 45 years or so of the US, New Hampshire was the meat in a Massachusetts sandwich.

ETA: Isle Royale is in Michigan. Keweenaw County to be precise.

Adding to this, since Ohio became a state first, it blocked Michigan's petition for statehood over the Toledo dispute.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ you can also drive from regular Virginia to Delmarva Virginia across the Chesapeake bay bridge-tunnel.

Not fundamentally different than going from Michigan's LP to the UP across Mighty Mac, just a bit longer (17 miles vs. 5 miles).


Additionally, Delmarva Virginia is only 662 sq. miles vs. the 16,377 sq. miles of Michigan's UP. Those are different scales of geography.

The greatest present-day disconnect in the Lower 48 would be... Nantucket in MA?

Hawaii is a bunch of islands, and Alaska has very disconnected parts too -- if our metric is road network -- even though the state is one whole contiguous unit.

Pre-1820 Massachusetts would be a level of exotic that hasn't been seen in like 200 years.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by lio45

The greatest present-day disconnect in the Lower 48 would be... Nantucket in MA?

It depends on how you measure these things.

In terms of physical geography, the largest piece of land in the lower 48 that you can't get to via land transportation (driving, biking, walking, etc.) would be Isle Royale in the middle of lake superior.

Long Island and Padre Island, TX are larger, but they're both connected to the mainland parts of their states via numerous bridges. Isle Royale is only accessible via boat or seaplane.