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Edited on Sun Feb-15-04 06:41 PM by northwest
I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and I'm starting to think so. You see, back in 1889 when they granted statehood to the Dakota Territory, they split the territory/states into north and south. People back then had no idea that not many people would live in those states 115 years in the future. They did that with the mindset that both states would boom for decades to come due to agriculture. But North Dakota's population topped out in 1930 at 680,845, and South Dakota stayed stagnant in growth until around 25 years ago.
Think about this: According to the 2000 census, North Dakota has 642,200 people, and South Dakota has 754,844 people. If you merged them together, you'd have a state that has a population of 1,397,044 (currently probably over 1.4 million) people that's almost exactly the size (area-wise) of New Mexico.
Now here's the benifits to this idea: If the Dakotas merged, that would mean more political power for the region. There would be three representatives and two senators. Initiatives in Washington that would benefit the region (wind power, agricultural support) would be listened to more. We'd have more political clout. We'd also recieve more money from Washington for different initiatives. Dakota would be more liberal as a whole state than just the current North Dakota, because South Dakota usually is a bit more progressive than us folks up here.
But for the question of where to put the state capitol: I think the state capitol would be Bismarck, because it's closer to the center of the two states, and it's much larger in population (6 times as many people live in Bismarck-Mandan) than Pierre. Also, Bismarck has a much larger capitol building, and could better handle the increased number of legislators. Also, a town of 14,000 people like Pierre couldn't handle being the capitol of a state of 1.4 million people.
The only problem is that if we merged North and South Dakota, there would be 49 states. But I think this is something that if it ever came up, that the people here would have to decide. And I believe that I would vote yes on such a proposition.
What's your opinion on this??? Any North and South Dakota DUers responses would be awesome.
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