America is just sort of backwards in the way it developed.
Human history is one of villages becoming towns, towns becoming cities, and some cities becoming great urban centers. Political divisions and systems arose organically as these cities grew and interacted. Thus Rome didn’t spring forth fully formed. No, the Republic formed as the city gained wealth and then used that wealth to gain control over the surrounding countryside, then Italy, then Africa, then eventually most of the known world.
In America our political divisions were enacted by a political body recognizing territorial boundaries over largely unpopulated wilderness with few urban centers. Now, these urban centers have grown and like they have done throughout history everywhere, they are exerting their control over the surrounding areas. They are somewhat constrained by the political framework put in place before most of them even existed in anything like their forms now, but for how long?
Last edited by JoeBob; 09/18/19.
