Planning the Next Great Migration

In addition to the widespread urban-rural divide in America, there are, historically, conflicts among regions whose differing environments, economies, and cultures would lead them to favor different political policies. At the moment, these regions are strongly tied together by mass fossil-fueled transport of people and goods and by electronic communications. (Surely TV and the Internet are main drivers of the Southernification of rural areas.) However, the continental U.S. “homeland” alone is extraordinarily large by the standards of pre-fossil fuel empires. Several authors have noted that, under the façade of shared consumer culture, the United States contains multiple regions that are as different in culture and environment as neighboring nations on other continents might be. At some point, long-distance travel and shipping and possibly even communications will be reduced by declining energy supplies, infrastructure, and wealth, possibly coupled with extremist violence. As a result, some have suggested, the breakup of the United States might follow naturally, perhaps even peacefully.