Re: More future history questions - USA

Back on 20th Jan Tom B wrote:

>More interesting questions to me are will the USA endure or will it
>fragment and if so along what fault lines. North/South? Coasts versus
>interior? Will it one day decide to annex its northern neighbor for
>resources?
>
>I don't see the USA easily being destroyed by external invasion, except
>insofar as that is accompanied by some large fissure within the US
putting
>the invader into alliance with some major US subfaction. The only real
>enemy for US coherence that I see is the great polarization in the US
body
>politic and the number of 'true believers' whose outlook denies science
or
>rationality in favour of some alternate decision making process...

WARNING: contains stereotyping and fiction by foreigners. Don't
get too excited, OK?

Another Scottish writer, Ken MacLeod, has the USA fragmented
in Cosmonaut Keep, the first of his "Engines of Light" series.

The split is longitudal, along cultural lines. All the God-fearin'
right-thinkin' clean-livin' folks move to the heartland away from
the decadent liberal socialist metro/homosexual coastal dwellers.

West Coast is California, Oregon, and Washington states. Between
them, they have Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Boeing (civilian bit)
and Microsoft. They're so rich they can buy Oregon as a vacation
home. Population is down compared to the USA as a whole, but all
these businesses make a lot of money from foreign trade, not
domestic.

East Coast is the coastal states and big metropolitan sprawl, from
Boston to Baltimore? Atlanta? New York and the stock exchange are
the big earner, especially overseas, but there's a solid base of
population and industry. They're still rich.

The heartland states, except for Texas, are relatively to
absolutely poor. And global warming doesn't help the farmers.

	cheers,
	Hugh