George W. Bush, the security threat to America and the states that support him

*by definition = a sprawl/conglomeration. It would be much more interesting if it measured straight density according to city limits, not by arbitrary boundaries.

and city limits are arbitrary boundaries

Are you talking http://fthevote.com/? I can see why that might be exhausting.
;^}

Megapoli:
Megapoli are huge sprawling conglomerations of housing, commercial interests and sundry support and entertainment facilities.

I think that geography/topography are the primary challenges to sprawl (cf, hong kong, macau, singapore). you may consider them arbitrary, but at the very least city limits at least provide a consistent measure of fixed population growth. you can not say the same for megapoli.

Cities in the NY/Chicago density class - SF, Philly, DC, Balto, Miami, Cleveland, Seattle, Oakland, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Detroit, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Rochester, and many of the cities in these cities' metro areas

Cities in the Texas density class - Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Kansas City, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Vegas, Nashville, Memphis, Albuquerque, OKC, Richmond, Tulsa, Omaha, Wichita, Tampa, Birmingham, Baton Rouge, etc.

There seems to be a clear political difference here.

conglomerate

intransitive senses : to gather into a mass or coherent whole
transitive senses : ACCUMULATE

annex

1 : to attach as a quality, consequence, or condition
2 archaic : to join together materially : UNITE
3 : to add to something earlier, larger, or more important
4 : to incorporate (a country or other territory) within the domain of a state
5 : to obtain or take for oneself

New York is almost twice as dense as Chicago

New York is almost 5X as dense as Chicago!

Yup, we swayed 'the moneyed and the immigrants' and made the poor little PQ loose.

of course i did this the hard way - the density rankings make it plainer

also, while the layout of lower Manhattan was largely unplanned, it took nearly 200 years for colonists to move above Wall Street, and they planned much of the rest of the island very shortly after doing so

With a little more than two weeks to the election, Bush was campaigning in New Jersey, a reliably Democratic state that was hit hard when terrorists struck the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Campaigning in Marlton, N.J., Bush accused Kerry of having a pre-Sept. 11 view of the world, a mind-set that he called dangerous. Kerry's approach to terrorism would permit a response "only after America is hit," he said.

"This kind of Sept. 10 attitude is no way to protect our country," Bush said, echoing many lines from his debate appearances and campaign speeches.

The Bush campaign unveiled a new TV ad that sought to portray Kerry as weak on terrorism - "either we fight terrorists abroad or face them here" - and accuses the Democrat of opposing President Reagan "as he won the Cold War."

Nearly 700 New Jersey residents died when hijacked airplanes flew into the World Trade Center's twin towers, and polls show national security and terrorism are the top campaign issues among voters in the state.

Democrat Al Gore easily won New Jersey in 2000, but voters' worry about another terrorist attack is a key reason why Bush and Kerry are locked in a tight race for the state's 15 electoral votes.

Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart says New Jersey is an interesting place for the president to campaign because its two senators and former Gov. Thomas Kean, chairman of the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission, have complained that Bush hasn't done enough to push the panel's recommendations into law.

The writer's logic in this article seems to be that a large election factor for people in NJ is the probability of another terrorist attack but makes no mention that there is less of a race in New York and DC, neighboring state and district where attacks actually occured.

So the same colonists lived for 200 years?

The thread question here is an excellent one, and one that's been bugging me for a long time now. It's strange not just vote-wise but emotionally: people in states that have almost no chance of being affected by terrorism seem actually to be more personally upset with the possibility than people who are actually in a position to have to deal with it. I suppose if you live in Arkansas terrorism is a much more effective bogeyman?

I think you might piss off quite a few military families from the red states with that line. xpost

You can't take the language people use at face value. If your adherence to one side is pre-rational, because it's what your neighbors do, and you'd stick out too much if you went against them, you don't have to believe or justify to yourself the words you use to defend your position, you just have to mouth the party line. Same reason people on opposite banks of the Upper Mississippi apparently pick football teams based on the State they live in.

I think you might piss off quite a few military families from the red states with that line

oh? How are they "affected by terrorism"?

LA and Miami more than San Fran, I thought. Vegas, Arlington and Alexandria did go for Gore in 2000, though I dunno why we're using pre-9/11 votes to measure concern about terrorism.

The fact that i read the entire thing and thought about it means I get to talk about Momus.

That's what i need to know about Chicago, too! I mean, where the fuck are *those* parties? Maps would be appreciated.

Also, a point that I didn't get to make earlier (I had some errands to run): Timothy McVeigh was a Gulf War I vet.

Also, another point: the most significant acts of domestic terrorism I can think of other than Oklahoma City: D.C. Sniper and anthrax attacks. Both of which took place in urban and suburban settings. I guess you could throw in the Ohio sniper too, but then we'd have to really talk about suburban and rural areas and not just pay some sort of Brooksian lip-service to them.

For one thing, I imagine that there are a lot more New Yorkers in Maine (where many in the Boston-to-DC-metroplex retire or reside for part of the year) than there are in Alabama. places where Jews are found in fewer numbers aren't necessarily inhospitable to them, of course (and i wasn't saying any such thing, if that wasn't clear). but minority status and the desire for/requirement of a community for religious observance are going to discourage Jews from moving to places where there aren't many Jews.

Is that a place now? What rights do they give its citizens? I may want to move there.