NH - ME and VT all have lower population densities than does GA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density
Not trying to pick on you here, but many people have misconceptions of all of New England as just NYC north, crime infested, overpopulated, polluted, liberal shitholes.
At least as far as the Northern New England states are concerned, nothing could be further from the truth.
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Maine vs. New Hampshire. A really long analysis
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I recommend Maine. Not saying that the Free State Project should move there. But, maybe for Ron Paul to move there.
1) There is nothing in New Hampshire really as nice and available property-wise. Maine has a wide variety of pretty nice property available. Want an island in the Atlantic? Tons of em available. 50 acres on a peninsula? Sure. $2.5 Million gets you 5,700 acres. That's under $500 an acre. And this land isn't desert, this land is covered with trees and pure fresh water. In a SHTF scenario, it's pretty good. Manhattan is 21,000 acres. So, an area 1/4 the size of Manhattan costs 2.5 Million. It has a lake in it. About an hour from Bangor. About an hour from Bar Harbor. Can you get that in NH?
2) Maines economy is based in part on rich people from out of town buying up the waterfront properties and living there less than 6 months of the year to avoid the taxes. Ron Paul would be a rich person from out of town if he moved here. The economy in the areas with the most rich retired and 2nd home people definitely meets the needs of rr2h people. So, he'd like it there. They cater to the needs of people like him. There are people you pay to put in your dock, and take out your dock, and even to put your boat in the water. What some people do is live and work 7 months in NH and spend 5 months in ME.
3) Washington County (and Hancock, Aroostook). People talk, off and on, half joking, about splitting up Maine into 2 states. Washington County has some pretty amazing characteristics. Easternmost county in US. There's a huge bay there, with a tremendous amount of still cheap waterfront property. Huge tides. They're generating utility grade megawatts of power from those highly predictable gorlov turbines. They've got one in, they plan for around 50. And if it was its own country, it could finish up the project from the 30s where they created several peninsulas to channel the tides. I think they were going to use the Lubec Narrows. Or, get a new country and then trade land with Canada, and get some of the shoreline, and work with that to generate enough electricity. Give them the Northern area and they can put their East West Canadian Shortcut in. Plus, there is a lot of food to just grab out of the water. Right now, the price of Lobster at the docks is under $3 a pound. And there's a lot of wild blueberries, if you like that sort of thing. It's interesting that all of this high quality food is just right there. Pretty good, but a little bit tart and a little bit small, apples grow at my house (I'm not on Washington, and people walk down my driveway and into the water to pick up the clams. If green crabs were good, or snails, you could eat a lot of them. They're just there. All the time. Gourmet seafood. So in a true SHTF scenario, the coast of Maine, especially Washington (Cobscook Bay is where they get divers scallops), wouldn't be the worst place to be. From living there, I can tell you that almost all of Maine is almost entirely empty. That's an exaggeration, but, at night, I can drive on US Rt 1 for a hour and about 10 cars would be coming in the other direction. And I can drive backroads for 2 hours from Knox County to Bangor, during the day, and see about as many cars. And during the winter there are even fewer cars. And I'm not in the most rural part of Maine. I'm on the Midcoast. There is one section of Maine that is 100% empty. Nothing there at all. That's the western part of northern Maine. The North Woods. Nothing there. But almost all of Northern Maine and Eastern Maine, including Washington County, is almost completely empty. Let's use the New England states as a point of reference. All 7 Maine counties listed are bigger than RI.
Sorted by Population Density (most to least)
State/County Area (including water) Year Round Population Ppl sq mile (approx) notes
Rhode Island 1,214 square miles 1,051,302 1000
Massachusetts 10,555 sq mi 6,587,536 700
Connecticut 5,543 sq mi 3,580,709 600
New Hampshire 9,304 sq mi 1,318,194 140
Vermont 9,620 sq mi 626,431 65
Penobscot Co 3,556.14 153,923 45 Bangor (3rd largest), U Maine Orono (largest), port
Maine 35,385 sq mi 1,328,188 35
Hancock Co 2,351.03 square miles 54,418 25 ocean. contains Bar Harbor.
Franklin Co 1,744.31 30,768 17 some Canada border
Somerset Co 4,095.37 square miles 52,228 13 some Canada border
Washington Co 3,254.91 square miles 32,856 10 Most Key. easternmost, ocean and canada
Aroostook Co 6,828.79 square miles 71,870 10 Key. most canada border, most north bigger than CT
Piscataquis Co 4,377.36 square miles 17,535 4 technically frontier, no ocean, no canada
Maine is the same size as CT+RI+MA+VT+NH
4) Maine doesn't like jobs too much. (This might be the primary sticking point) It's just not a priority. Other things are more important. Quality of Life is important in Maine. That often means the environment
often trumps jobs. Mainers don't seem to like Fortune 500 companies very much. In some places, there are organized protests when Walmart comes to town, and they've been successful in keeping Walmart out of their town. So, if you are a small business owner, they do appreciate you, they're in favor of what you're doing. There might be a bunch of regulations making it inefficient and costly to operate there, but if you're a small business, doing something they liked, the people like you.
Chains aren't well liked, not a lot of fast food. Poland Spring (if I recall correctly) had a "success tax" placed on them, basically, when there was a bottling water tax put on, or something like that. It seems like "people need jobs" is not a rallying cry heard that often around here. Theres a lot of welfare. Income Taxes are high.
I think one of the underlying attitudes is "we like it like this. the pretty nature. I didn't move here from Boston to see or hear or smell any evidence of people working.
So, let's get rid of those jobs. And if you can't find a job, here's some welfare (we can afford it, you can't believe what we got compared to what we got on the Upper East Side, we can afford these taxes), or you can leave, leaving is perfectly fine with us. So, there really aren't too many jobs, and the general Maine attitude isn't to go begging for them. Most states would've said "Come to our state Poland Spring. Use our tapwater with the chlorine in it. We'll give you tax breaks." That is not what Maine is about.
5) LURC. There's a temptation to think "oh, wow, wouldn't it be cool to own a huge piece of property, and then just start building a huge enterprise there. 1/4 the size of Manhattan, 2.5 mil. There's no local government. The county doesn't care what you do. You're good, right, you ca79n get started. Nope. There's LURC which is like the State Planning Board. It's a level of state government for people who they don't feel have enough government. I can't really explain it. Land Use something. They're the ones who tell you that you can't do anything with your land. They're the ones who say "our plan has "nothing" in your area, so, you can't do anything there.
But LURC isn't something necessarily permanent. If LURC is gone, perhaps you can open up the "music town" where the music industry relocates to. 1/4 of Manhattan can have the entire music industry with their own metal trailer. And a Stadium, Arenas, studio complexes, You sign a band, you send em to the music city. Here's your house, or your trailer. You start recording tomorrow in studio 79R. Wait outside for the shuttle bus at noon. You get the idea. This new state, Washington, Hancock (Eastern?, there are parts of Hancock that don't vote right), Aroostook could be big. The removal of LURC could have that stimulative effect.
6) Maine votes for Independents. The probable next US Senator is Angus King, running as an Independent. This wasn't a Crist situation where he lost the primary or thought he would. He announced he'd be running as an independent, and shot to the top of the polls. The Democrat in this race, Cynthia Dill, is in single digits, at 8%.
The Republican, Charlie Summers is down around 10-20 points. They are comfortable voting for candidates who are not status quo politicians. This is beneficial to Ron Paul and to others who might be Libertarian.
7) People who live here. The Bushs are here. That could be a good or a bad thing. Chief Justice Roberts summers here about 10 miles away by water and 30 miles away by road. There are actually new jobs there. Processing Lobster. You could process lobster in a tiny village where the Chief Justice lives. Jobs available now. Seriously. If you wanted to, right now, get paid to process lobster in the town where the Chief Justice is currently living, you could. A little over minimum wage. If you think you're going to run for office, you might to tell voters "I processed lobster for a living" and be a blue collar guy if you want to be.
And maybe Ron Paul can buy a house near him and explain the constitution, and Roberts'll get it right. New Hampshire has John Sununu.
8) Live Music - not that important really, but "where should we move to" does include a number of things beyond rankings. Nothing in New Hampshire comes close to
Portland, ME. Amazing for a city of 66K. All within walking distance you have a hockey arena 9,500, CCCC (The Black Keys, American Idol, Bassnectar) State Theatre
1680 (Built To Spill, O.A.R, Dr. Dog) Port City Music Hall 550 (Dinosaur Jr., ISIS, Yeasayer) Space Gallery 300 (Dan Deacon, Thurston Moore, Xiu Xiu, Oneida)
and others, all within a short walk, Empire, Genos, Asylum. Heck, here's a map. The more I analyze it, the more I'm staggered by how really amazing all those venues
all packed together with such good acts in such a small metro area is. If anyone is reading this from a city with more great venues smacked together, I'd like to investigate that place. Map.
9) New Hampshire - If you want to open a business free of interference from the Govt, NH is a fine place. The core problem with New Hampshire is that demographics or growth patterns don't look good going forward. Basically, most of NH is a Boston Suburb. And Boston's liberal. That trend is likely to continue. Rockingham and Strafford are part of the Boston MSA. Hillsborough, Merrimack, Belknap are all Boston CSA. Only Grafton, Sullivan, Cheshire, Coos, Carrol are not part of the Boston CSA.
The Boston CSA counties are large, and growing, the counties that aren't Boston CSAs are rural and shrinking. It's really a battle against the never ending growth of the Boston suburbs (the new developments are not filling up with "Live Free or Die" Libertarians, but Liberals who work in MA) and this is not a battle the Libertarians are likely to win.
10) Canadian Border. If you look closely at the county by county results, well, here
http://www.google.com/elections/ed/us/results/2012/gop-primary/us-counties you'll
see that Ron Paul does unusually well in the Canadian border counties. This particular map does not do Maine right. We were very strong in Aroostook and Washington Counties, which have very long Canadian borders, those 2 counties are most of the Maine border with Canada. Ron Paul I guess appeals to those people who decided they wanted to be really really close to Canada for some reason, perhaps a worry about an escape route from an oppressive government. SHTF? Go to Canada. And those people like Ron Paul. New Hampshire has very little of that border with Canada that Ron Paul supporters do like.