I've heard Texas talk about their secession for years. "We would be the fourth largest national economy!" they crow. "We are the only state to have been its own country!" they sing. California leans into frame and Texas starts looking panicked. "Excuse me, what's this about being the most feasible country trapped as a st--" "YouWereNeverAFullCountry," Texas yells. "Lalalalala I'm not listening."
Anyway, what I'm saying is that states-as-countries is such a popular subject that I would like to abandon it and run head-long into the geopolitical hinterlands.
Anyway, what I'm saying is that states-as-countries is such a popular subject that I would like to abandon it and run head-long into the geopolitical hinterlands.
San Bernardino County
The largest county (the most common political subdivision smaller than states) in the United States is San Bernardino County in California. It has a larger landmass than nine states and seventy states (a little geopolitical humor here, ruined by my necessary explanation. A state is an ambitious name for the second level of government in the U.S. and a state is a sovereign nation). The population is commensurate; as of 2010, the population was 2, 035, 210, a truly staggering number of folks. Per capita income was $16,856 in 2000 before the recession. But this is all stuff I ripped from Wikipedia, which is not why you come here. I don't know why you come here, but I hope it's for obscure relationships between geography facts that put old ideas into new perspectives. Here's some new information you can't learn from Wikipedia: my brother lives in San Bernardino County (SBC). On my bicycle trip, I entered his county in Needles and cycled for three full days to get to him--a ninety mile day followed by two seventy five mile days. And I was still in the county. The shape of SBC is a logical rectangle, so this was not a two-hundred mile snaky arm that stretched out to greet me. Rather, the county includes a vast and inhospitable expanse of the Mojave. Every soul who makes their home in this county lives in the desert. Most people have lawns. Christmas lights are not popular there, but Christmas songs are omnipresent. And, if you’d like a little more personal opinion mixed in with all the facts, their library system is terrible. They will drive a book to you from Needles to San Bernardino, a ridiculous distance, but their DVD selection outshines their YA section considerably.
So: is this borderline-illiterate swath of desert feasible as a sovereign state on the world stage?
No.
In size, this county is most similar to Costa Rica, or Bosnia and Herzegovina. It sports as many people as Botswana or, pleasingly, Macedonia. Average per capita income for employed people is roughly equal to—you guessed it—Slovenia. Why are so many south-eastern European countries showing up? And why doesn’t SBC make it easy to find their economic production per capita so I can speculate about GDP? I found and downloaded a PDF that estimated farm production + industrial output as 18.2 billion dollars, but that figure comes to a comical $8.66 per capita, so I don’t know. Most of the time, I can fake these statistics sometimes, but as we will learn, this county is not a country and no equivalent measure can be extrapolated. People who work make about as much as people in France who work, but the unemployment rate is 9%, so you do the math.
Now, I’ve been holding back on a pleasing comparison for you to delight in. The size and population of SBC are extremely close to Lesotho, a land-locked, arid country. So, if there’s already precedent for a similar country, why was I so down on the possibility of San Bernardino county as its own country? Simply: water. The Water Project.org has an article about the water crisis in Lesotho (“Water in Crisis,” by Lindsay Boyce), and it’s exactly the opposite of the current water crisis in San Bernardino, where a nearly decade-long drought broke literally this winter while I was staying with my brother there and they still don't have water. They don’t have water in any of Southern California, not for drinking, anyway. The biggest body of water in that part of the state is the rancid Salton Sea. On the contrary, Lesotho is having a water crisis because the only natural resource they have of any value is water. They sell so much of it that their citizens are suffering from difficulty of obtaining fresh, safe, reliable sources of water. So, while the everyday citizen will face essentially the same problem, the governments would face mirrored problems: Lesotho, a struggle to develop any significant long-term income from any source but water, and San Bernardino to stop hemorrhaging money on water.
Cook County
The second most populous county in the United States is Cook County in Illinois. It’s more interesting than Los Angeles county because I like geography and demographics, and an argument about the fiscal possibility of Hollywood out-earning a water crisis is interesting but impossible for me to research. The population of Cook County was 5,238,000 in 2015 (It’s roughly half the population of LA county). Chicago, its county seat, is the third-most populous city in the United States, larger than 29 individual US states. And the population is dense, too: 2,140 people live in every square kilometer of the county (5,530/sq mi). I always feel like I have to cite Wikipedia on these. So, let’s escape the pull of the best website on Earth and start talking strange trivia. Cook county contains a congressional district that joins two hispanic communities (to consolidate their vote and ensure it’s not competitive/the hispanic citizens get a voice without being drowned out by surrounding African American Democrats. It’s not all bad.) Chicago has the Willis Tower, a building 501 Ru Pauls taller than Illinois’ tallest geographical prominence. Shedd Aquarium was, for a time, the largest in the world (at least Atlanta’s is much larger; I’m not researching this but I know it’s far from biggest now). In order to fill the tanks, Shedd brought water from the Gulf of Mexico on trains, which I had not thought about, but makes sense. I would have just poured salt into lake water and called it good. And for all you hoity toities who say the midwest has no culture, basically everyone in the god-forsaken "comedy" show Saturday Night Live is from Second City. Other, better comedians are also Second City alums.
So: is this populous midwestern haven of questionable culture ready to take its Bean and go?
Well.
Cook County is closest in size to Cape Verde, and Trinidad and Tobago. Its closest match in population is Norway. Average wages (again, no GDP for counties) are most similar in Germany or Ireland. So it's a small country with a relatively enormous population and a very active economy. Is there any precedent?
Honestly, with twice the landmass and half the population of the special administrative district of Hong Kong, there's still a bit of parity. It's possible that Chicago, which has two arduous routes to open ocean (one through the all the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence waterway and the other up the Chicago river and then down the Mississippi) is no more difficult for most Western countries to trade with than Hong Kong. Admittedly, the ships on the St. Lawrence are much smaller than open-ocean cargo ships, but Chicago has much better access to the richest country on Earth. So why has this idea occurred to me?
In 1955, two traders in Chicago quietly cornered the market on onion futures. Stick with me. Siegel and Kosuga, the two traders, established control over 98% of the onions in Chicago, and by extension, the midwest. They did with root vegetables what DeBeers did with diamonds: they threatened to flood the market and destroy average prices unless onion markets dealt directly with them. So many onions were shipped to Chicago that there was a shortage in the rest of the U.S. Meanwhile, 50lbs of onions could be had for less than the burlap they were sold in. They could have strangled the market, too, if not for the Onion Futures Act of 1958. This sort of economic power is what makes the Chicago Mercantile Eschange second in the United States to Wall Street, and has a unique position in the world: they trade futures, more than any other financial organization, more than New York. Financially, the new country would have a stable and long-term source of income. Given Hong Kong's success for nearly fifty years as an almost entirely unregulated economy under the United Kingdom, Chicago could angle for the same success. There Chicago school of economics has seen limited success, and Milton Friedman's legacy of free market forces lives on. Maybe Cook County could become a state. It's got a pretty good chance, all things considered.
The second most populous county in the United States is Cook County in Illinois. It’s more interesting than Los Angeles county because I like geography and demographics, and an argument about the fiscal possibility of Hollywood out-earning a water crisis is interesting but impossible for me to research. The population of Cook County was 5,238,000 in 2015 (It’s roughly half the population of LA county). Chicago, its county seat, is the third-most populous city in the United States, larger than 29 individual US states. And the population is dense, too: 2,140 people live in every square kilometer of the county (5,530/sq mi). I always feel like I have to cite Wikipedia on these. So, let’s escape the pull of the best website on Earth and start talking strange trivia. Cook county contains a congressional district that joins two hispanic communities (to consolidate their vote and ensure it’s not competitive/the hispanic citizens get a voice without being drowned out by surrounding African American Democrats. It’s not all bad.) Chicago has the Willis Tower, a building 501 Ru Pauls taller than Illinois’ tallest geographical prominence. Shedd Aquarium was, for a time, the largest in the world (at least Atlanta’s is much larger; I’m not researching this but I know it’s far from biggest now). In order to fill the tanks, Shedd brought water from the Gulf of Mexico on trains, which I had not thought about, but makes sense. I would have just poured salt into lake water and called it good. And for all you hoity toities who say the midwest has no culture, basically everyone in the god-forsaken "comedy" show Saturday Night Live is from Second City. Other, better comedians are also Second City alums.
So: is this populous midwestern haven of questionable culture ready to take its Bean and go?
Well.
Cook County is closest in size to Cape Verde, and Trinidad and Tobago. Its closest match in population is Norway. Average wages (again, no GDP for counties) are most similar in Germany or Ireland. So it's a small country with a relatively enormous population and a very active economy. Is there any precedent?
Honestly, with twice the landmass and half the population of the special administrative district of Hong Kong, there's still a bit of parity. It's possible that Chicago, which has two arduous routes to open ocean (one through the all the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence waterway and the other up the Chicago river and then down the Mississippi) is no more difficult for most Western countries to trade with than Hong Kong. Admittedly, the ships on the St. Lawrence are much smaller than open-ocean cargo ships, but Chicago has much better access to the richest country on Earth. So why has this idea occurred to me?
In 1955, two traders in Chicago quietly cornered the market on onion futures. Stick with me. Siegel and Kosuga, the two traders, established control over 98% of the onions in Chicago, and by extension, the midwest. They did with root vegetables what DeBeers did with diamonds: they threatened to flood the market and destroy average prices unless onion markets dealt directly with them. So many onions were shipped to Chicago that there was a shortage in the rest of the U.S. Meanwhile, 50lbs of onions could be had for less than the burlap they were sold in. They could have strangled the market, too, if not for the Onion Futures Act of 1958. This sort of economic power is what makes the Chicago Mercantile Eschange second in the United States to Wall Street, and has a unique position in the world: they trade futures, more than any other financial organization, more than New York. Financially, the new country would have a stable and long-term source of income. Given Hong Kong's success for nearly fifty years as an almost entirely unregulated economy under the United Kingdom, Chicago could angle for the same success. There Chicago school of economics has seen limited success, and Milton Friedman's legacy of free market forces lives on. Maybe Cook County could become a state. It's got a pretty good chance, all things considered.
Clark County
There are other counties that are bigger, more populous, more influential, or richer. But Clark County in Nevada stands to gain the most from becoming its own country. Vegas, baby. Technically, Paradise, baby. Nobody goes to Las Vegas to visit Las Vegas. The nearby unincorporated census-designated place is where the casino-hotels, the boxing arenas, the magic and music shows are. Paradise has the Vegas strip, the long bit of road with neon lights that show up in every movie set in sin city. For the same reason that Paradise is unincorporated, Clark could benefit from a little less oversight.
Clark has 2,070,000 people and over 150,000 hotel rooms. That's thirteen people a room. Not bad, but hell on the maids. I drove through Clark County for the first time recently and was shocked at how many buildings' names I recognized. Moreover, I was able to name the Luxor by sight. How? Here's some trivia: the MGM Grand, a name I recognize, made $3,000,000,000 in net revenue in 2013. And I don't think they're the most profitable casino. Regardless of casino facts, a little digging into the namesake of Clark County reveals Senator William Clark, who was Senator of Montana, a man who never lived in Nevada, whose only lasting impact on the county named after him was essentially the fact that they named it after him. And why would they do that? Mark Twain once wrote of him:
"He is as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag; he is a shame to the American nation, and no one has helped to send him to the Senate who did not know that his proper place was the penitentiary, with a ball and chain on his legs. To my mind he is the most disgusting creature that the republic has produced since Tweed's time."I like to think he embodied the aesthetic they were going for. (Caveat: Twain was friends with Clark's business rival. For added depth and clarity, Clark once said "I never bought a [man's loyalty] who wasn't for sale.")
So, is this haven of smut and lechery a feasible nation?
Unequivocally.
Clark County is about the same size as Slovenia, and only slightly larger than Fiji. It has almost the same population as Slovenia or Macedonia. I am ticked off that people in Clark County make significantly more on average than in Slovenia. I wish Clark County were effectively Slovenia, and it's mostly because of this glorious quote I found on the Wikipedia page for Slovenia: "Important parts of tourism in Slovenia include congress and gambling tourism. Slovenia is the country with the highest percentage of casinos per 1,000 inhabitants in the European Union." First, I don't know what congress tourism is. Second, I am really enjoying the brain-feel of the word Slovenia. Third: Clark County is essentially Slovenia.
The reasons why Clark County and more specifically Las Vegas and most specifically Paradise could benefit from sovereignty are numerous. Prostitution is legal in Nevada, but the state made it illegal in cities over a certain size. That would be good news for Paradise, which isn't a city, but the state decided loopholes are for suckers and outlawed it entirely within the county. Marijuana is legal in neighboring Oregon and California and nearby Colorado, but illegal in Nevada. And this goes against the grain for Las Vegas. Gambling was legalized in Nevada while the rest of the country was banning and destroying pinball machines. Clark County is known for its lax divorce laws. Their county motto is "Living Relentlessly, Developing Economically!" for heaven's sake. [Emphasis mine.] If Clark County were its own country, they could make as much money as they wanted and gouge rich American tourists for every available dime of sin tourism.
I understand that other counties are strong candidates for country status. Monroe County in Florida is effectively already a small Caribbean nation; I understand their native currency is sand dollars. The story is similar in Hawaii, where there is no government level below that of county and each county is coterminous with its constituent islands. They're halfway there already. Alaska doesn't have any counties. Why do you have to rock the boat, Alaska? A borough by any other name would smell as county.
Some assorted trivia for your nightcap.
Strange Tales: Douglas County
For some reason, Douglas County in Colorado has the ninth-highest median household income in the United States with $95,000, and the entire county has less population than most small cities, at 300,000. There isn't a ski resort. The biggest employer is the school district, as you would expect if you knew small counties. They vote Republican.
For some reason, Douglas County in Missouri is the twenty-second poorest county by a different metric, per capita income. Seventeen percent of the thirteen thousand people live below the poverty line. They vote Republican.
For some reason, Douglas County in Missouri is the twenty-second poorest county by a different metric, per capita income. Seventeen percent of the thirteen thousand people live below the poverty line. They vote Republican.
Small, also small, and still smaller:
The least-populous county in the US by a narrow technicality is Loving County in Texas. It was first incorporated as part of a hoax perpetuated by a canal company. The first female sheriff in Texas was elected in Loving County. Edna Reed Clayton Dewees never carried a firearm and only arrested two people. Lord knows what for. In 2000, Loving was the only county in Texas without a citizen below the poverty line. In 2010, one citizen was between the ages of 18 and 24. Dating options are scarce. Only 2.6% of people have bachelor's degrees or higher, the lowest percentage in the US. There's one town (unincorporated) and three ghost towns.
In some ways, Kalawao County in Hawaii is the least-populous US county, and its population will legally decline to zero and then cease to exist. Originally a leper colony (Hansen's disease), its purpose was determined obsolete with the discovery of an effective treatment. Due to their disfigurement, many residents decided to stay. No new permanent residents will ever exist. No one under the age of sixteen can even visit the county without permission to see a relative. Seventy eight percent of the population is over 45. But there's no county government as the area is technically administered as a hospital by the Hawaii department of health. The estimated population is only 88 people.
EDIT: This map I found on Twitter shows every county with a lower population density than Central Park, New York. Kalawao isn't shown, but Loving is.
EDIT: This map I found on Twitter shows every county with a lower population density than Central Park, New York. Kalawao isn't shown, but Loving is.
Falls Church, Virginia (county equivalent) is two square miles. It had the highest household income in the United States with $113,000 in 2011. It had the lowest poverty rate of any city or county in the United States with 4% in 2010. The city employs a full-time arborist. Let that sink in. The city has a person on staff whose entire job is to touch trees. We can assume that this person makes about $50,000. 19% of the residents of Washington, D.C. are below the poverty line. Falls Church is Eagleton made manifest.
Wheeler County, Georgia, has a 25% poverty rate. Per capita income is $13,000. It is the second-poorest county. Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota, has a 50% poverty rate. It's the poorest. Per capita income was $6,286 in 2000. I want that exact number to sink in because every dollar of that matters. The population is 94% Native American. The site of the battle of Wounded Knee is in this county. There's nothing exactly interesting or funny about these two counties. I just needed you to know.
According to the list of U.S. counties by income, Oklahoma's Tulsa County is the poorest county that is richest in its state, at 543rd poorest county nationally. Connecticut's Windham County is the richest county that is poorest in its state, at 510th richest nationally. Try not to think about the fact that the poorest community in Connecticut makes, on average, more than the average residents of thirty states and Puerto Rico. Try not to think about the fact that the median family in Windham County, Connecticut, makes as much as about three median families in Puerto Rico. Try not to think about the fact that when the residents of Windham drive to town, they feel poor.
Utah has the largest spread between first and second, seen between Morgan County, its second-richest at 777 nationally, and Summit County, the 32nd richest nationally.
According to the list of U.S. counties by income, Oklahoma's Tulsa County is the poorest county that is richest in its state, at 543rd poorest county nationally. Connecticut's Windham County is the richest county that is poorest in its state, at 510th richest nationally. Try not to think about the fact that the poorest community in Connecticut makes, on average, more than the average residents of thirty states and Puerto Rico. Try not to think about the fact that the median family in Windham County, Connecticut, makes as much as about three median families in Puerto Rico. Try not to think about the fact that when the residents of Windham drive to town, they feel poor.
Utah has the largest spread between first and second, seen between Morgan County, its second-richest at 777 nationally, and Summit County, the 32nd richest nationally.
