Why Urban States Need Their Rural Counties

The idea of secession is an old one – obviously, in America, one that goes all the way back to the country's founding. Since then, we also have a formidable history of seceding from ourselves: the South from the North, Maine from Massachusetts, Vermont from New Hampshire, Kentucky from Virginia, and later West Virginia, too, from its eastern sister.

No one has been all that successful since, over the past 150 years, although plenty of people have tried. The last-ditch divorce tactic just never loses its allure. Lately, though, the idea has been back in the news across the country with some unusually intense popularity. Supervisors in the Northern California county of Siskiyou actually voted last week to try to pursue breaking from California (their ideal scenario: band together with several counties from Northern California and Southern Oregon into the new state of Jefferson).