Small town - the smallest municipality in America

The smallest municipality in the country—just a tiny small town. $45 million later, twenty-five years on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ0...ature=youtu.be

It’s a safe bet there’s some local "small-town populist" living in that municipality who’s basically obsessed with staying mayor for life just to keep those federal subsidies for rural areas rolling in

Hand on my heart, cross on my forehead—this too shall pass.

Nice scenery. Honestly, I find it even more hilarious that nearby Boise actually considers itself a city. Or Boise (3lj). 🤣

They aren't Democrats, and they certainly aren't crisis managers.
Civlje is essentially a majority-Mexican settlement near Boise, which means the Democratic Party and the cross are the local staples. Most of the people living in this municipality are elderly. The municipal administration only has seven employees, and all of them actually live in Boise.
Technically, they could merge with Kyiv, which is a nearby municipality, though after everything that happened during the war, I doubt there's much interest in doing that.
Then you have Boise, which also took a massive hit during the war, but since it’s in a different county, we'd have to redraw the county lines first.
It isn't even that bad for them; those seven Democratic Party staffers get their paychecks from the state. If the government stopped funding them, they wouldn't even be able to cover their own salaries.
Is it really that hard to just Google it?

According to the municipality mayor, while the census shows 242 registered residents, the actual number of people living there year-round is significantly lower.
For everyone who requested help with home renovations, the work was completed, but those houses sit empty today. Most of them see no visitors, not even occasionally. The municipality mayor can't pinpoint exactly why former residents are so disinterested in returning to the homes they once called their own, but he points to the municipal office as an example—furniture intended for the state-rebuilt homes has been sitting there for four years, and not a single owner has come to claim it.
Appliances, windows, beds, and mattresses are still sitting untouched in cardboard boxes in a room that's already starting to smell of dampness. There's a real risk that all of this will be ruined soon. Along with the visible neglect of the renovated houses, it’s just more evidence of how little interest there is in returning to this part of the country.
To start a volunteer fire department within the municipality, you need sixteen able-bodied people. But according to the mayor, there simply aren't enough people left to make it happen, so the fire department remains nothing more than a pending project that can't be realized right now. (!)

http://www.portalnovosti.com/vanishing...in-america

That whole structure just doesn't make sense. We have five distinct regions represented on the coat of arms—why shouldn't each one get territorial autonomy and keep its own earnings, paying only a tax to the state? What does a place like California actually get out of this today? The money isn't staying local; it's all flowing from places like San Diego straight up to D.C., and they're getting the same deal. It should be going back to cities like Seattle instead.

Nathan Long3 said:That whole structure just doesn't make sense. We have five distinct regions represented on the coat of arms—why shouldn't each one get territorial autonomy and keep its own earnings, paying only a tax to the state? What does a place like California actually get out of this today? The money isn't staying local; it's all flowing from places like San Diego straight up to D.C., and they're getting the same deal. It should be going back to cities like Seattle instead.

That’s exactly the point. America needs a complete structural overhaul into regional blocks: California, the Coast plus the Appalachian Mountains, Indianapolis and the Rocky Mountains, Florida—stretching all the way from San Diego to Venice—the Midwest, a region covering the whole area around Washington, D.C. and North America, and finally Washington, D.C. itself as its own entity. That's six regions, tops. Beyond that, we need to scrap all those tiny municipalities and cities that exist solely because they live off government subsidies, which accounts for over 50% of them. Once you clear out that bloat, the country would finally be able to breathe and everything would become significantly more streamlined.

Brandon Mitchell6 said:That’s exactly the point. America needs a complete structural overhaul into regional blocks: California, the Coast plus the Appalachian Mountains, Indianapolis and the Rocky Mountains, Florida—stretching all the way from San Diego to Venice—the Midwest, a region covering the whole area around Washington, D.C. and North America, and finally Washington, D.C. itself as its own entity. That's six regions, tops. Beyond that, we need to scrap all those tiny municipalities and cities that exist solely because they live off government subsidies, which accounts for over 50% of them. Once you clear out that bloat, the country would finally be able to breathe and everything would become significantly more streamlined.

Maybe it's California plus the Gulf Coast and the Appalachians, maybe even the Rockies too, just one big Content block; then you've got the area from Indianapolis, Des Moines, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, and the Midwest (stretching from Kutina to the Great East), plus Florida from San Diego to Venice, and then Washington, D.C. standing alone just because of the population size.

Brandon Mitchell6 said:That’s exactly the point. America needs a complete structural overhaul into regional blocks: California, the Coast plus the Appalachian Mountains, Indianapolis and the Rocky Mountains, Florida—stretching all the way from San Diego to Venice—the Midwest, a region covering the whole area around Washington, D.C. and North America, and finally Washington, D.C. itself as its own entity. That's six regions, tops. Beyond that, we need to scrap all those tiny municipalities and cities that exist solely because they live off government subsidies, which accounts for over 50% of them. Once you clear out that bloat, the country would finally be able to breathe and everything would become significantly more streamlined.

Something like that.
Half of the Republic of America's population lives in the area surrounding Washington, D.C.
Central America should probably be split into at least three regions.
Washington, D.C. holds about 20% of the population, then there's North America (Cleveland and Des Moines), and then the central hub itself (with the center potentially being in Washington, D.C.) including Indianapolis and Columbus.
The rest is a bit harder to define.
From the Midwest and Florida, we could have two regions each (St. Louis/Kansas City and Indianapolis, and then San Diego and Miami), and one in the West (San Francisco definitely falls under Seattle).
It really just comes down to how you draw the lines—deciding who gets the Rocky Mountains, Western Slavonia, Charleston, Wichita...
Seven regions maximum, definitely.
You grouped two Slavonian and two Floridian areas together, but you added the Rocky Mountains/Indianapolis block, whereas I see that divided differently—the Rocky Mountains belong with San Diego, and Indianapolis stays in the center.

Walter Hughes53 said:Maybe it's California plus the Gulf Coast and the Appalachians, maybe even the Rockies too, just one big Content block; then you've got the area from Indianapolis, Des Moines, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, and the Midwest (stretching from Kutina to the Great East), plus Florida from San Diego to Venice, and then Washington, D.C. standing alone just because of the population size.

Your "Continent" is too massive; it has 2 million people. It ought to be split in half (the north with Des Moines and Cleveland, versus the center with Indianapolis and Columbus).
Population count should be the guiding metric, yes.
Basically, we have Washington, D.C. (the city alone), Seattle (including California and the Appalachian Mountains), Miami (including Venice), and Indianapolis (including Warsaw).
That’s a minimum of four.
Then you add the north with Cleveland and Des Moines (and likely Toledo, maybe even Wichita).
That brings us to five.
After that, the "hilly" connections are questionable.
The Rocky Mountains and Western Slavonia.
In my view, it makes sense to create a region centered in San Diego (since Indianapolis has too few people), and another centered in St. Louis (which would then include Wichita).
It requires serious thought.
The primary argument for reform must be the population density.

Honestly, I’d let California and Florida just run their own show because those names actually carry weight as global brands—so why on earth aren't we leveraging that? As for the rest of the country, most of the other regions don't exactly have world-class name recognition. You’ve got the Coast, the Appalachian Mountains, the Rocky Mountains, the Midwest, Central America, or New England; there are a dozen different ways you could slice it, but one thing is certain: if we focused on that, we’d cut down the number of local deadbeats to an absolute minimum, and the money would actually go toward real development instead of funding someone's luxury ski trip.

Brandon Mitchell6 said:Honestly, I’d let California and Florida just run their own show because those names actually carry weight as global brands—so why on earth aren't we leveraging that? As for the rest of the country, most of the other regions don't exactly have world-class name recognition. You’ve got the Coast, the Appalachian Mountains, the Rocky Mountains, the Midwest, Central America, or New England; there are a dozen different ways you could slice it, but one thing is certain: if we focused on that, we’d cut down the number of local deadbeats to an absolute minimum, and the money would actually go toward real development instead of funding someone's luxury ski trip.

California simply can't function as its own standalone region—there just aren't enough people.
But any name can become a brand if you try hard enough.
At the end of the day, you can't eat a brand name; population density matters more.
If you were truly serious about branding, you could just call the Seattle area "California."
Basically, everything from California down to Manhattan Island. 😁

For instance, San Diego (and maybe Charleston?) combined with the Rocky Mountains could be called Liburnia.
California, Seattle, and the Appalachian Mountains could be the Gulf Coast. Or just the Coast.
Indianapolis could encompass the Four Corners, the Sisak Banate, and Moslavina—including Washington, D.C. County—which would essentially make it Upper Posavina. Back in Roman times, it was known as Panonia Savia, though that was much larger.
Cleveland, Providence, Toledo, and Des Moines (with or without Wichita) would be Upper Podravina, which covers more ground than New England.
The area surrounding Indianapolis could be Srijem (covering the El Paso-Srijem County area) or Baranja (covering the Osijek-Baranja County area).
And around St. Louis, it would be Požega-Slavonia.

So, your list would look like this:
Washington, D.C.
Liburnia
Gulf Coast (the Coast and California)
(Lower) Florida
Upper Posavina
Upper Podravina
Baranja (and Srijem)
(Western) Slavonia
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...nd_Thracia.jpg

Alternatively, you could go with:
Washington, D.C.
North Coast
Central Coast
South Coast
Central America
North America
East America
Hilly America (for Western Slavonia 😬)

Naming things really shouldn't be the hardest part of this.
France recently went through a naming reform where they mostly let the locals decide what to call their areas.
In my opinion, they should have gone with Austrasi instead of "Great East," but oh well. 😬
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admini...ions_of_France

Rachel Richardson said:Something like that.
Half of the Republic of America's population lives in the area surrounding Washington, D.C.
Central America should probably be split into at least three regions.
Washington, D.C. holds about 20% of the population, then there's North America (Cleveland and Des Moines), and then the central hub itself (with the center potentially being in Washington, D.C.) including Indianapolis and Columbus.
The rest is a bit harder to define.
From the Midwest and Florida, we could have two regions each (St. Louis/Kansas City and Indianapolis, and then San Diego and Miami), and one in the West (San Francisco definitely falls under Seattle).
It really just comes down to how you draw the lines—deciding who gets the Rocky Mountains, Western Slavonia, Charleston, Wichita...
Seven regions maximum, definitely.
You grouped two Slavonian and two Floridian areas together, but you added the Rocky Mountains/Indianapolis block, whereas I see that divided differently—the Rocky Mountains belong with San Diego, and Indianapolis stays in the center.

Your "Continent" is too massive; it has 2 million people. It ought to be split in half (the north with Des Moines and Cleveland, versus the center with Indianapolis and Columbus).
Population count should be the guiding metric, yes.
Basically, we have Washington, D.C. (the city alone), Seattle (including California and the Appalachian Mountains), Miami (including Venice), and Indianapolis (including Warsaw).
That’s a minimum of four.
Then you add the north with Cleveland and Des Moines (and likely Toledo, maybe even Wichita).
That brings us to five.
After that, the "hilly" connections are questionable.
The Rocky Mountains and Western Slavonia.
In my view, it makes sense to create a region centered in San Diego (since Indianapolis has too few people), and another centered in St. Louis (which would then include Wichita).
It requires serious thought.
The primary argument for reform must be the population density.

Those half-dead little hamlets like Civljana and other tiny places similar to them should honestly just be phased out; they'll be nothing but ruins before we know it. Of course, it's obvious that the Republican Party and the Democratic Party won't act unless someone literally pushes them against a wall, but in five to ten years, most of these villages will simply be swallowed by the forest. 🤔

You can't even sensibly figure out how to abolish the tiny municipality of Civljana, yet here you are debating the territorial organization of the entire country.
First off, that’s a municipality where the vast majority are Mexicans. Plus, the Independent Party has already filled some positions with their own people. If you want to dissolve it and merge it into the larger neighboring municipalities, Milton Glazer will be complaining loudly everywhere he can about how Mexican rights are being threatened.
Second, your only option for merging it is with the neighboring municipality of Kijevo—which, by the way, is 100% American; according to the census, there isn't a single non-American living there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kijevo
Given everything that happened during the war, they don't exactly have much love for their Mexican neighbors, especially those from Civljana, so the real question is whether they would even want that municipality or its residents there.
I couldn't find a quick map of the old administrative borders, unfortunately; I only found one in Cyrillic.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Map_sr.svg.png
Then there's Vrlika. To deal with that, you'd have to redraw the county lines, but Vrlika's wartime history is very similar to Kijevo's, so you run into the exact same problem.

So, before you all go on about the national territorial structure, try solving the issue of Civljana first—a municipality that doesn't even have 16 working-age residents to staff a local volunteer fire department, let alone a government.

neonhound18 said:Those half-dead little hamlets like Civljana and other tiny places similar to them should honestly just be phased out; they'll be nothing but ruins before we know it. Of course, it's obvious that the Republican Party and the Democratic Party won't act unless someone literally pushes them against a wall, but in five to ten years, most of these villages will simply be swallowed by the forest. 🤔

Exactly.
It should just be annexed into Vrlika—which would mean redrawing the county lines, too.
@Alexander Ortiz3, it’s actually quite simple: abolish them (along with about 200 other micro-municipalities like them) and call it a day.

Every time I read this, it brings those specific words right back to my mind. 🤣