We should change the state structure of the U.S. to update our government for the 21st century. A key step is to move from the current 50 states to between 6-8. This will align our government structure with current technologies for transportation and communications, and make it more effective, efficient, and representative.

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The U.S. was settled in the 1600s, and pioneers set up structures of government that were appropriate for the times. They had horses for transportation and messengers on horses for communication. The population was in the thousands and eventually a few million. In the times of ancient Greece and Rome it was said that the boundaries of the state should be based on citizens who could be summoned by the cry of a herald. Our American predecessors applied the same logic, and created small states they could govern effectively with the limited technology of the time.

We’ve moved beyond horses, way beyond them. But our structure of government hasn’t.

We have 50 states, many of whose boundaries were defined centuries ago. California has nearly 40 million residents, while Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Rhode Island combined have less than 15 million. California is over 150 million square miles; the others are just over 60 million combined. How can this make sense? There’s tremendous waste and duplication in small state government—how many governors, governors’ offices and staffs, legislators, legislators’ offices and staffs, and other redundant functions are taxpayers funding? Why? Is there any current justification for these tiny states?

If we started today with a blank map and created states based on what could be governed most effectively using current technology for transportation and communication, would we end up with one state that is 2.5 times larger and more populous than six others combined?

Of course not.

The world has changed as well. The nation-state is the preeminent governmental and economic structure in the world today. China is not competing against Arkansas or Montana, it’s competing against the U.S. We need to aggregate our economic power to compete successfully in the global economy, and standardization and simplification can help make this happen.

But there’s an even more important problem with this anachronistic state structure:  it makes a mockery of the concept of American democracy.

The United States Senate is the least representative democratic governmental entity in the developed world. California, with a population of nearly 40 million has two senators. The six New England states with a combined population of 15 million have twelve. The vote of each citizen in New England is therefore worth approximately 21 times the vote of each citizen in California.

Congress was established with two houses with the explicit goal of enabling effective representation based on states and based on population. This made sense as the country started and expanded and may be an appropriate approach for balancing the needs of rural and urban parts of the country today.

But 21 times more votes for one citizen than another?

This is unconscionable. And simply undemocratic.

By restructuring the states in the U.S. we can dramatically streamline government, save significant dollars for taxpayers, and make the government more representative for our citizens.

Rather than 50 states, the U.S. should have 6-8. They should be roughly equal in population. It would be nice to have them relatively equal in area, but this isn’t feasible given the U.S. population distribution.

What might this look like?

Take a look at the maps below. Although boundaries could certainly be created anew, it’s easiest to use the existing state boundaries as a starting point. Various alternatives could be generated to create six, seven, or eight states with relatively balanced populations.

A structure with six states might look like the map below. This structure yields regions with populations slightly above 50 million, except for the mountain region (green) in the central-western part of the country which is closer to 43 million. The mountain region is much larger than the others, but this will be a characteristic of any comparable solution simply because this part of the country is less densely populated.

A structure with seven states is similar, except for the addition of a state in the mid-Atlantic region (orange). Populations for states would be 40-50 million and pretty well balanced.

An eight-state model would add another state in the south-central portion of the country, and also reduce the western state (blue) to California, Alaska, and Hawaii in order to keep populations relatively balanced.

The spreadsheets below provide a rough estimate of the populations and sizes (square miles) for the more equitably balanced 6-State, 7-State, and 8-State Models.

Would one of these designs be more effective, efficient, and representative than the current structure? Would all of them? Should we make a change? I lean towards the six-state model as the most straightforward, and I’m not sure I see the value of incremental states. But I would be comfortable with any of them as a significant improvement over the current structure. This is a discussion we should have—it’s time to update our government for the 21st century to achieve a truly democratic and representative government.