NORTH OHIO 2: George Nemeth excerpted my last entry on Brewed Fresh Daily and got a string of comments from readers. I can't figure out how to link to George's comment page, but here's what's there now:
The concept is great in that it emphasizes the potential and power of the region. However, it ignores the reality that NEO is connected to the rest of Ohio, the Great Lakes, and the Mid West. Statehood is another way of running away from the fact that we are still dependent in some way with the rest of the world. In fact, from my observation, the creation of a duplicate state government by OUR powers-that-be would probably MORE THAN DOUBLE the overhead and bureacracy that we suffer with in Columbus.
steveg
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That's more people than many countries!
Finland with their high tech mobile phone business is just 5 million.
But we really should not be investigating the erection of new boundaries...
Valdis
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two words...west virginia
mike
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I understand the frustration. Having spent two years on a "task force" dedicated to statewide economic development, I've become suspicious of purported relationships between economy and 19th century political boundaries.
That said, the problem is fractal: the more tightly you frame the geography, the more clearly you see finer economic fault lines.
My home state - Montana - has somewhat fewer than 1 million people spread across an area just slightly smaller than California. There are at least three distinct economies here. I wonder how many economies NEO has?
Dave Bayless
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A problem with this idea is it has no limits. What's to prevent a group of wealthy suburbs to insist they are their own state, and need not contribute to poorer areas? Seperatism is also pretty bad for any economy, witness the carnage in the Quebec economy as they flirted with seperation for the past few decades. It's one reason I didn't move to Montreal.
Jerry
Hmmm... let me think this over and get back to you all.