>How many people (non-Bostonian Massachusetts) are we talking about here?

The Boston statistical area also covers Nashua and Portsmouth which while not as heavily populated is not even part of Massachusetts and NH prides itself on having much different culture and politics than it southern neighbor, just worth pointing that out.

A huge chunk of the population across the entire state is gonna be apathetic on any/every issue. If you cut those out of your counting (which probably cuts the state population in half or so) I'd say 45%+/-10% really resent Boston's control over the rest of the state, particularly in the second tier cities that get pushed around at the state level when it comes to funding.

There's a pretty steep drop off to approval of state government once you're outside I495.

Also, the preferred pronoun for people from MA is "Masshole" ;)

Edit: By Boston area I do NOT mean [1] which includes a lot of the Fall River/New Bedford area, the Lowell area and places more under the effect of Worcester in addition to parts of NH and ME. I mean the area in MA where Boston is the major city that has the most effect on day to day life (not to be confused with "daily effect on life") of most people. The area covered by Boston Craigslist is a pretty good proxy for this.

[1] https://statisticalatlas.com/metro-area/Massachusetts/Boston...

> A huge chunk of the population across the entire state is gonna be apathetic on any/every issue but I'd say a solid million or two really resent Boston's control over the rest of the state

The Boston metro area is a majority of the state's population, is it not? "Minority wishes it wasn't overruled by majority" isn't exactly news, and it's exactly how you want a democracy to work anyway.

It might be how you want a democracy to work, but it's not entirely how you want a Republic to work.

Yes, it depends on what you feel is the fundamental component of American society: the person, or the parcel of land.

No, it doesn't. We have checks on the power of the majority in a Republic because the majority doesn't always think long term and it's easy to get a populist leader that splits the country apart.

Yeah, those checks are things like the judicial branch, separation of powers, periodic (and particularly in the case of the Senate, infrequent) voting, and the Constitution being difficult to amend. Giving special power to one type of minority is unnecessary and subverts the general will of the people.

If we had a legislative house for white people and another for black people, would that be a good idea because hey, that white majority doesn't always think long term? Again, there's no reasonable justification for why it should be that geographic minorities get extra political power.

> If we had a legislative house for white people and another for black people, would that be a good idea because hey, that white majority doesn't always think long term?

I mean, maybe. What year are we talking about here?

Perhaps in 2018 that wouldn't be a good idea, but even if you were to go back to so far as the 50s, I think that you would find a lot of blacks saying "yes. I very much WOULD like to have a seperate government ruling me in America, because this other group doesn't care about my rights".

There are lots of times when the majority is wrong, and decentralizing power is one method of insulating people from the effects of it.

>If we had a legislative house for white people and another for black people, would that be a good idea because hey, that white majority doesn't always think long term?

No, because that doesn't make any sense. Nobody always thinks long term. That's one of many reasons why we have a Republic, not a Democracy.

Geographic minorities in the US get extra political power because they require increased infrastructure spending relative to their population, they have a history of rebellion in systems with a centralized government and so that lower population states are more likely to not only accept the decisions of government but actively take part.

> No, because that doesn't make any sense. Nobody always thinks long term.

Then why do we have one house where geographic minorities get extra power permanently?

> Geographic minorities in the US get extra political power because they require increased infrastructure spending relative to their population

No, they get extra political power because it was needed to bring them into the union when the country was founded, and the Constitution is very difficult to amend. At this point there's no reasonable justification it should continue this way, except that the very parties that benefit also have veto power over the system changing. It's like the Security Council.

> they have a history of rebellion in systems with a centralized government

Funny, there are lots of countries that don't give extra political power to rural areas that seem to manage just fine. Does anyone seriously think Wyoming is going to try and secede? Why would they if, by your own admission, they're being subsidized by the more populous states?

> more likely to not only accept the decisions of government but actively take part.

Syracuse, NY has an even smaller population than those states, and yet somehow its residents manage bring themselves to take part in politics.

Doesn't Wyoming currently have disproportionate political power relative to their population? If they didn't, would they still be subsidized?

>the preferred pronoun for people from MA is "Masshole"

assuming you can even find one any more, a cabot or a shaw would disagree. But brahmins are scarce these days.

Grew up in Framingham, enlisted in '94 and haven't lived there since, but even out here in the Quad Cities, I still think of myself as a Masshole... and I use the word liberally for my home state :)

Bay Staters is the real demonym

The Boston Metro area covers a fairly big area (and the combined statistical area even more, including cities in adjacent states). Within the city limits proper, the population is under 1 million--although that's partly because Cambridge and Somerville aren't part of Boston.

The statistical metro is probably the closer match to the Boston that controls the state than the proper city.

That's true but the parent was asking how many people don't live in Boston but are effectively controlled by the politics there anyway. And the statistical metro is in some sense a measure of the area/population that can be thought of as associated with Boston. (i.e. more or less by definition, the people whose politics/economics are influenced by it)

But that's kind of the rub -- people in Hingham might carp that they don't want to pay for the T in Boston, and yet their own prosperity comes, in part, from having a nearby city with well-funded public services