Joel Garreau

Joel Garreau is a pioneer of secession theory applied to North America and of urban economics. He famously claimed in 1981 that the conceptual metaphors of rural culture (more) and urban culture (less) would pull both Americans and Canadians further from the influence of Washington DC and Ottawa, Ontario, their respective capital cities. His followup on the Edge City explored the more uniform and artificial suburban cultures that were dominating politics in both countries, to the disadvantage of traditional social structures.

• Wikipedia article on Joel Garreau
• Wikipedia article on Nine Nations of North America - Garreau's 1981 book