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Comment by mousethatroared | Hacker News Reader

I think NY state concurs wrt to NYC.

So why don't y'all split the state up? NYC in one corner, the rest of NY on the other.

Then upstate folk will get real political representation in Albany, and NYC will send two interesting senators to DC. As much as I disagree with AOC I'd love for her to become a senator.

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Easier said than done, as it needs consent of the state legislature and the us congress. The last time a state was split off like this was West Virginia exiting Virginia in 1863, while Virginia had seceded.

Kinda ironic that it took a civil war the last time it happened.

More ironic that you'll probably find more confederate flags in WV than in VA, today.

They don't exactly brag about their state's loyalty to the nation back then.

States can’t just decide by themselves to split up. The federation has to consent, which with our permanently deadlocked congress will never happen.

More importantly the natural resources in upstate actually belong to New York, not to upstate.

They belong to the state.

But these things can be negotiated in the divorce

First step the state has to want to split, though. And I guarantee you that the red capitols (most of them) are game.

That leaves a small hurdle of getting a couple of purple states. Perhaps a great compromise is reached - NY ex-NYC merges with PA ex-Philly and Philly joins NYC.

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