Alaska has a population of 670,053. The cities of Memphis, Austin, Columbus, OH, San Francisco, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Detroit, San Jose, CA, Dallas, San Diego, San Antonio, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York all have larger populations. Wasilla has a population that is .2% of the population of Harris County, TX.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.htmlIn 2004, Alaska's gross state product was .3% of the US economy compared to 13.3% for California, 7.7% for New York and 7.6% for Texas. The District of Columbia has twice as large a gross as did Alaska at .6% of the US GDP.
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/2005/gsp0605.htmCrime: In 2006 in Alaska, there were 35 murders, 494 rapes and 587 robberies. In 2006 New York state had 154,593 murders, 561,630 rapes and 5,988,790 robberies.
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/akcrime.htm; http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/pio/annualreport/2007release.pdfAlaska spends more on education, but that is primarily because it is flush with oil money.
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Hit post too soon.. intended to hit "preview" to save. I'll add more shortly my point is Palin has never had to face any of the major issues associated with running a large state and has comparatively few real issues to handle that oil money could not address. She has no budget problems, she has no health care problems, she has no crime problems. She runs a state that is the size of a moderately sized city.