with talk of secession in the air, how about turning all cities with > 1M people into their own states? this would ensure people would ask nicely for all the money flowing from the cities to other states.
2022-06-25: A dramatic example how much better city states are.

As a result of intensive political competition and experimentation among over 1000 sovereign city-states, political institutions developed to an impressive degree. For example, the level of democratic participation in many Ancient Greek states was only attained again anywhere else in the world by the developed countries in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The typical Late Classical Greek house had 250 to 330 square meters of interior space, more than the average American home today. This implies Classical Greeks urban dwellers typically enjoyed 50 to 70 square meters of residential space per capita. For comparison, in the US today, the average residential space per capita is about 75 square meters, and in France and Germany, it is 40 square meters, in the UK, it is 30 square meters, while in developing countries like Russia and China, per capita residential space is between 15 to 20 square meters.

2023-07-13: Jane Jacobs on the logic of city states

Jacobs shows us a glimpse of a world in which secessions would be “a normal, untraumatic accompaniment of economic development itself.” Regions would separate when they feel the need to, before decline has set in. “In this utopian fantasy, young sovereignties splitting off from the parent nation would be told, in effect, ‘Good luck on your independence! Now do try your very best to generate [or maintain, as the case may be] a creative city and its region and we’ll all be better off.’”

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