This is exactly why I think many state borders in the US need to be redrawn, for better administrative efficiency and less political problems.  New Jersey as a state should not exist, at all.  The northern half should be part of a new city-state called &quot;New York City&quot;, which includes not only present-day NYC boroughs, but Jersey City, Newark, and the rest of northern NJ in the west, White Plains and all that area to the north, and Stamford and the eastern half of Connecticut to the east, as well as all of Long Island.<p>The southern half of NJ should be part of a new city-state called &quot;Philadelphia&quot;, which also includes Philly, the surrounding area in PA, and maybe Newark Delaware.<p>This pattern should be repeated across the nation, with state lines redrawn so that no large metro area crosses a state border.  If a metro area crosses a state border, we&#x27;re doing it wrong: there should be a clear hierarchy with towns&#x2F;cities being lower-level than states, being lower-level than the federal government, and having cities spanning states breaks that and creates confusion and generally a big mess, as is seen with the screwed-up transit systems between NYC and NJ.<p>While they&#x27;re at it, they should re-organize the states so they&#x27;re roughly the same population.  So tiny-population states like Rhode Island and Vermont and Wyoming need to be merged with neighbors somehow, and huge-population states like California and Texas need to be broken up.  This would lead to better representation in the Senate.<p>There&#x27;s a web page here about someone&#x27;s idea along these lines:
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tjc.com&#x2F;38states&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tjc.com&#x2F;38states&#x2F;</a>
This was a class project in the 70s, but the idea is sound and makes even more sense now with greater urbanization since then.  They also reduce the total number of states, which would save taxpayer money overall by reducing administrative overhead.