Restating Part 1

So once again we are at the point we reach here in the United States every ten years where we are forced to reshape our Congressional Districts.  Some would say this is an extreme exercise in futility and others will say it is necessary to ensure proper representation in our republic.  Both are right.  Now what if we really go at it and Restate?

 

Maura what are you talking about?  "Restate" isn't a real term.  Well technically it is: to state again or in another way merriam-webster .  So what happens if we separate major cities from their conjoined states?  For example we separate Chicago from Illinois, congressionally nothing happens but suddenly Illinois has two senators.  But Maura Illinois already has two senators.  Yes and no.  The issue in many states is that senators are actually elected by the major cities, so in Illinois that means Chicago gets the attention and down state not so much.  Missouri is another good example St. Louis and Kansas City are all anyone has to campaign in to win a senate seat, meaning rural Missouri does not get a say (In disclosure I have lived in the greater St. Louis region for 38 years.)

For this thought experiment let's limit our thinking to metropolitan areas of roughly five million or more inhabitants or about half of the accepted size of a megacity so what cities would be affected?  Well the top ten off the top of my head would be:

New York City, NY     Population: 20,320,876
Los Angeles, CA        Population: 18,710,563
Chicago, IL                Population: 9,458,539
Houston, TX               Population: 6,997,384
Phoenix, AZ                Population: 4,737,270
Philadelphia, PA        Population: 6,096,372
Miami, FL                  Population: 6,166,488
Boston, MA                Population: 4,875,390
Seattle, WA                Population: 4,018,598

For brevity I will concentrate on the top three.

 

The Constitution does allow for this (U.S. Constitution Article IV Section 3 )

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudiceany Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

So the founders sort of allowed for states to divorce and there is precedent!  In 1861 27 counties chose to leave Virginia and became West Virginia.  Yes this happened at the beginning of the American Civil War but a precedent is a precedent none the less.  So with precedent established let's dive into this rabbit hole of an idea!

Chicago!  Why Chicago Maura it's the smallest of your examples?  Because it is sort of my back yard and being the smallest is the easiest to deconstruct.  So where and how do we draw the lines?  I'm going to use existing county lines as opposed to random edges of weird congressional district boundaries.  So here are the counties and their population--all data via Wikipedia.

From Illinois we take:

Boone        53,544 persons      288 square miles in area

Cook     5,150,233 persons      945 square miles in area

DeKalb    105,160 persons       635 square miles in area

DuPage    922,921 persons      322 square miles in area 

Grundy       50,972 persons      430 square miles in area

Kankakee 109,862 persons      681 square miles in area

Kane         532,403 persons     524 square miles in area   

Kendall     128,990 persons     322 square miles in area

Lake          696,535 persons     444 square miles in area

McHenry   307,774 persons    611 square miles in area

Will            690,743 persons    849 square miles in area

So from Illinois we lose: 8,749,137 persons and a total land area of 6,051 square miles.  That leaves Illinois with 51,864 square miles of land and a population of 4,063,371.

Wait Maura!  That means Illinois will lose 68% of its population!

Yes, you are correct and part of the point of this exercise.  Thirty-two percent of the Illinois population and 90% of it's land, is governed by one city, what is locally called "Down State" is often left out or has very Chicago specific laws forced upon an otherwise very rural state--population density of Illinois in this project is 78.34 persons per square mile on average.

A narrow example but I live down state and this is the view from my roof taken last Summer.

Now I happen to be in a more population dense area just outside of St. Louis!

Now part of forming Chicago into a state means we need the entire metropolitan area so what counties do we take from Indiana?

Jasper      33,270 persons    560 square miles

Lake       485,493 persons    499 square miles

Newton    14,011 persons    402 square miles

Porter     170,389 persons    418 square miles

So Indiana donates 703,163 persons and 1879 square miles of land.

So what does the State of Chicago look like?

Population 9,452,300 (almost a mega-city by definition)

Land area of 7,930 square miles

Average population density of 1,192 persons per square mile

 

Map courtesy of my daughter Docta Jazz

 

The next installment in this series I will try and look at the financial impact this divorce will have on both Illinois and Chicago.