Which counties would you like to see subdivided or redrawn?

[EastAnglianLefty]

I think there's probably a pretty good argument for merging Wayne, Warren and Oakland counties in Michigan. It's quite striking that it wasn't until about 15 years ago that the Detroit metro (as opposed to Detroit itself) started to shrink and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that many of Detroit's problems are because 8 Mile Road meant the financial consequences of white flight were much worse than they'd have been if they stayed in the same county.

Possibly the solution would be something more like NYC or European metropolitan areas, where you have an overall city leadership and you then subdivide it into boroughs which have their own political leadership for more local priorities.

There's also a decent argument for altering the boundaries everywhere a city is in two or more counties and potentially for reshaping the map entirely and basing it around commuting patterns.

There is no Warren County in MI. Macomb?

Yes. An instance of brainfade.

[RI]

Small question that I didn't think warranted its own thread: Why is the border between VA and WV so bizarre? Why is Waiteville, WV a part of VA and not a part of VA? It doesn't seem to be connected to the rest of WV by any paved roads. And why is Rich Creek in VA and not WV?

Perhaps the better question is: Why were VA's counties so haphazard pre-Civil War?

[Hope For A New Era]

Small question that I didn't think warranted its own thread: Why is the border between VA and WV so bizarre?

It follows pre-Civil War county lines. As for why the lines were like that, no idea.

Why is Waiteville, WV a part of VA and not a part of VA? It doesn't seem to be connected to the rest of WV by any paved roads.

It's connected. There's one road that zigzags over the ridge.

And why is Rich Creek in VA and not WV?

Okay, yeah, that one is legitimately weird. I guess someone decided it would be a good idea to draw the counties that way for whatever reason.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

The northern part of Fulton County, GA, should be restored as a separate Milton County as it was before 1932.

Passaic County, NJ, is really ugly.

Maricopa County, AZ, feels too big and would deserve some trimming.

There are some thin counties that do not make much sense and should be dissolved into other counties, like Daggett County, UT; Lake County, TN; Grand Isle County, VT; probably also Fulton County, KY.

The counties of Bristol and Newport in RI should be dissolved, likely merged into Providence County.

Massachusetts has some really weird exclaves that should be eliminated, although counties in Massachusetts mostly do not have powers anymore, so no one will care.

Give the f***ing panhandle of Tom Green County, TX to either Irion or Sterling. God how I hate that panhandle.

Another f***ing "panhandle" I hate is the protuberance of Ware County, GA. It should pass to Charlton.

The four counties in the Northern WV Panhandle should become only two (and probably shouldn't belong to West Virginia, but that is for another thread).

Broomfield, CO is horrible and shame to the people who made it into a separate county.

San Bernardino County, CA should probably be split in some way but I don't know how.

Montour County, PA, people??

I strongly feel that Staten Island should secede from New York City and also be annexed to New Jersey. It's on the other side of New York Bay aka Hudson River, so it should "geographically" be part of NJ.

Cherry County, NE, I don't think it should change, but it feels... weird. Why is it so large?

[Hope For A New Era]

Broomfield, CO is horrible and shame to the people who made it into a separate county.

In their defense, they were a small city that had somehow found itself split between four counties.

They could have at least tried to make the boundaries nicer, though.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Broomfield, CO is horrible and shame to the people who made it into a separate county.

In their defense, they were a small city that had somehow found itself split between four counties.

They could have at least tried to make the boundaries nicer, though.

Well that's because most of the United States have a nonsensical way of drawing this kinds of subdivision, with absurd city boundaries or enclaves or exclaves (see: Los Angeles, Dallas, KCK, Broomfield, Fort Worth, Houston...) and/or city boundaries that span multiple counties.

New England townships, on the other hand, are perfect. Even better than Europe.

[GregTheGreat657]

Bumping this thread back uo

[lfromnj]

Broomfield, CO is horrible and shame to the people who made it into a separate county.

In their defense, they were a small city that had somehow found itself split between four counties.

They could have at least tried to make the boundaries nicer, though.

Well that's because most of the United States have a nonsensical way of drawing this kinds of subdivision, with absurd city boundaries or enclaves or exclaves (see: Los Angeles, Dallas, KCK, Broomfield, Fort Worth, Houston...) and/or city boundaries that span multiple counties.

New England townships, on the other hand, are perfect. Even better than Europe.

Dallas is ok. Only like 2k people live in the exclave parts although they do have those 2 super rich white areas that are enclaves.

[Biden his time]

I'm personally not opposed to having small counties. That said, I think several counties are way too large. These include:

Maricopa AZ
LA, Orange, and SD in CA
rename counties named after Jefferson Davis
abolish Broward County FL (he wasn't a great guy and also the county is a joke elections wise) and merge into northern Miami-Dade, split southern Miami-Dade into its own county
restore Milton and Campbell Counties in Georgia

abolish Issaquena County MS, merge with nearer counties

these are just a few of my favorite things

As a Broward resident, I'm fine with the bolded text. Not so sure about the sentence after it

I agree. I think that some counties and cities that should merge are here:

Cook IL
Harris TX
Los Angeles CA
King WA
Salt Lake UT
Maricopa AZ
Mecklenburg NC
Charleston SC
Fulton GA
Miami-Dade FL

This though is not a good idea.

While the city of Miami is admittedly too small I don't think that we should take the whole county and make it a city. Homestead, Kendall, Hialeah, Doral should remain separate.

I would be open to a regrouping of Miami-Dade though from the thirty-some cities today to maybe seven or eight.

[Crumpets]

For Washington State, these would be the changes I would make if given unilateral authority to re-draw county lines, starting from the status quo map:

- Put Port Angeles and Sequim in Jefferson County, while putting the western half of Jefferson County in Clallam county
- Kitsap County and the Kitsap Peninsula become co-terminous with Gig Harbor, the Key Peninsula and the area west of Belfair joining Kitsap County, in addition to the neighboring islands, including Anderson McNeil, Fox, Vashon, Blake, and Bainbridge
- Seattle becomes and Independent City.
- Snohomish County gets the towns on Highway 2 through King County
- Yakima and Klickitat County are rearranged into two new counties, one consisting of the Yakama Reservation down to the Columbia River, and one with Yakima itself and the north and east ends of the Yakima valley, plus some areas into Benton County.
- Walla Walla County annexes Columbia County.
- Asotin County annexes Garfield County.
- Skamania County is eliminated with Cowlitz County getting the north and Clark County getting the south.
- Wahkiakum County is eliminated with Cowlitz County getting most and Pacific County getting the westernmost corner.
- Okanogan County is split with the Methow Valley becoming a new county and the Highway 97 corridor merging with Ferry County.
- A new county is formed in the area of Grand Coulee Dam, including the easternmost corner of Douglas County, the northern panhandle of Grant County, and the Colville Reservation from Okanogan and Ferry Counties.

Roughly this:

[Sol]

The most obvious county to draw in NC which doesn't exist is one based in suburbs north of Charlotte and around Lake Norman. Something like this makes perfect sense:



It's a perfect community of interest--extremely rich lake-oriented suburbs. NC's own Williamson County.

However, I don't want this county to exist as it would siphon resources away from Charlotte and from more rural areas in the suburban and exurban counties. So here are better possibilities.

IMO quite a few NC counties are a decent size for city-county consolidation. The most obvious candidate is Durham, which has essentially no municipalities outside of the city. Mecklenburg is also a decent pick, since most of the suburbs have already been annexed, but it would be more politically difficult because the remainder, especially in the far north, don't love Charlotte. The situation is similar with Buncombe, Forsyth, Cumberland, and New Hanover. Pasquotank, Wayne, and Onslow could also amalgamate pretty sensibly, on the model of some small city-counties in Georgia.

Guilford and Wake are a little more challenging imo, because Guilford has most of High Point, which is a separate center. Wake has a lot more of the Raleigh metro than Mecklenburg or Forsyth, including some genuinely ruralish areas, so I don't think amalgamation is preferable.

(Of course ideally all metro areas should be merged, but I'm coloring inside the lines here).

Nash and Edgecombe should be merged, to unify Rocky Mount.

Otherwise, I'd merge some of the really small counties in the west and northeast:
Camden merges into Pasquotank
Tyrrell merges into Washington
Pequimans and Gates into Chowan
Jones into Carteret
Alleghany into Ashe
Clay and Graham into Cherokee.

[thebeloitmoderate]

Now this is a super great forum you made and I have a lot of suggestions and explanations
For Wisconsin
Make Milwaukee follow the "St Louis/Baltimore" concept- making it a independent city and having the county of the same name making the suburbs of Milwaukee if driving on 94 or 43 feel like driving to St Louis on 44/55/64/70 or I-95 in Baltimore's matter confuse you if you think the main city is going to be part of the county. Also the suburbs of this city is extremely segregated in fact Milwaukee is the most segregated city in America even St Louis and Baltimore suburbs have sizable African American populations for the former both sides of the Mississippi.
For Illinois
Chicago county should be made by having the namesake city alongside the suburbs that feel like Chicago community areas is a continuation of the city. Harwood Heights and Norridge mostly polish/italian suburbs have the feeling of the dunning neighborhood in the far northwest side of the city. Oak Park has the feeling of the Austin/West Garfield Park neighborhood but with more diversity and less urban blight. Cicero is pretty much southern north Lawndale and south lawndale (Little Village) a huge Mexican-American population. Riverdale is both a far south side community area and a small city similar to the community area mostly African American population.
Cook county can be split up in 2 parts one which ends at Evanston and resumes in Burnham
Randolph county does not needs a change itself obliviously but the other Illinois territory not Kaskaskia west of the Mississippi needs to be part of Perry county Missouri as the river changed course and somewhat made this tiny portion part of Illinois
For Missouri
St Louis city and county can be merged as one continuous subdivision using the Indianapolis formula simply called the city of St Louis but it will be large and long a la Jacksonville Florida and this will anger the St Charles and Jefferson county Folks who think St Louis is going to be the next Chicago or Indianapolis especially and it's population will explode to 1,294,000 making it the 2nd biggest city in the Midwest with only Chicago being bigger in population. And it will be the fastest growing city in the census even outpacing The Austin/Phoenix Areas famous for their population growths as well and returning above it's 1950 peak population number of 850,000
For NYC area
Have all 4 NYC boroughs touch each other become their own independent cities with Brooklyn and Queens having as impressive skyscrapers and their own downtowns as midtown manhattan. Staten Island can be part of New Jersey and it's own county as well.

[Tintrlvr]

Here's my redrawn county map of NJ, complete with names:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c3df0ab3-bd1c-4627-b5db-59f4a2383e1d

No effort was made to preserve existing counties, which do a quite poor job of reflecting current settlement patterns or cultural combinations in many areas. Tried to split no municipalities but ended up splitting Franklin Township (in RL Somerset County) because it just doesn't work whole. New names are mostly taken from local geographic features, especially rivers, with greater Native American influence intended. Another goal was to create a heavily minority urban county centered on Newark-Elizabeth (Newark County), and I believe Princeton County would be the most heavily Asian county outside of Hawaii.

Also I got to draw another large-ish Orange County for everyone to get confused over.

[chalmetteowl]

I think one of the biggest questions that should be simultaneously asked here is "what is the purpose of a county?"  In a lot of ways I feel like city and county governments are redundant.  As such, my proposal would be to consolidate the governments of all major cities and counties.

people are using there being too many counties to escape their responsibilities to the larger metro area... LA has 64 parishes and could do with like 10 all based around medium to big cities...

having too many counties made white flight possible

i would annex Arabi and Chalmette into New Orleans and draw the new St. Bernard Parish line by the Meraux refinery. I would also give St Bernard the east bank portion of Plaquemines. I'd make a state law that no parish could be on both sides of the Mississippi River. Parishes affected would be Plaquemines, Orleans, Jefferson, St Charles, St John the Baptist, St James, Ascension, and Iberville

I'd draw New Orleans East into its own parish, and divide St Tammany and Tangipahoa in half, with one half of each being the southern portions that have grown in the last 50 years and the other half being the more rural northern parts of each parish.