Are States Outdated?

Posted by: Tim Halbur

29 October 2009 - 7:00am

Alan Greenblatt reports on increasing chatter among liberal blogs over whether states as a form of government are obsolete, while regional interests are more valid and under-represented.

"Matthew Yglesias, in a post entitled "The Trouble With States," says that citizens have national concerns in common and certainly have issues in common with fellow residents of metro areas, but "we don’t really live our lives 'at the state level.'

And insofar as co-residents of a single state do have idiosyncratic issues in common that tends to be because important fiscal and regulatory powers have been allocated to state government rather than because it actually makes sense for them to have been allocated this way."

Full Story: The United Not-States

Source: Governing Magazine, October 26, 2009

Login or register to post comments
Email this page

Planning across states

Submitted by HRPlanner on Fri, 10/30/2009 - 16:10.

There is indeed a need for social and environmental issues to be addressed across states. South Jersey and Philadelphia have more commmon problems than do SE Pennsylvania and Western Pennsylvania.

We should be fostering cross state and regional initiatives and policies to address common issues.

Are there many good models of this?

Is US as a nation state outdated?

Submitted by HRPlanner on Fri, 10/30/2009 - 16:07.

The same question is being asked increasingly about states being part of the USA. Vermont and Hawaii have talked about becoming independent, while residents of many US territories are demanding independence, including Puerto Rico.

How many of our financial resources are consumed upward and out of our communities?