North-by-Northwesthampton

England has an incomplete -hampton theme. We have Northampton, Southampton, Littlehampton, Minchinhampton and a few others. We could do so much better with a little planning and reorganisation of local government, and provide thirty-three new local authorities which would be much neater than the current arrangement.

Draw a conceptual circle on a map of England whose circumference passes through Northampton and Southampton. Divide this into thirty-two sectors forty and one-half nautical miles long and almost eight nautical miles wide, thereby creating a regular thirty-two sided polygon. Define an area of the same shape in the centre of the polygon such that it has the same area as one of the sectors. This gets you thirty-two thin tapering quadrilaterals and one thirty-two sided regular polygon with identical areas.

Name (i know, but this isn't all to the idea) each sector by compass points, so there's Northampton, North-by-Northwesthampton, North- Easthampton and so on, the centre polygon being called Middlehampton. Cede the whole area from England proper with a roughly circular border, interrupted here and there by the coastline and call it Roseland. Middlehampton is the capital and each sector along with the central district a rather narrow local authority.

Advantages of this arrangement:

It makes geography simpler - people know roughly where somewhere is from its name and can navigate to something like the right area by using a compass, with the slight problem that magnetic north is not geographic north.

An area somewhere in Buckinghamshire (i think) becomes the capital, thereby shifting the apparatus of government from a congested big wen and freeing up that big wen for other purposes such as tourism and other industries.

Many local authorities become mixed rural and urban areas, encouraging them to balance the needs of both communities and also providing a balance of left- and right-wing councils.

Everyone (except in Middlehampton) is under four nautical miles from another local authority, meaning they will sometimes be able to vote with their feet if they don't like what's going on.

A radial transport system can be built along great circles, which is more efficient than the current arrangement and could be more easily automated.

Meanwhile, Lancaster and York adopt the same systems with thirty- three smaller areas centred on the cities concerned with the areas again becoming separate countries referred to as Redroseland and Whiteroseland respectively, the radius being defined as the halfway point between the two cities. These are also separate nations, and the advantages are the same. There would of course be some controversy in the respective eastern and western parts of Redroseland and Whiteroseland.

The remaining territories in the former England can do their own thing. Maybe the bits left in the North can become part of Scotland, the bits in the West Wales and Cornwall becomes independent.

The rest of the world will then find it easier to learn our geography and local government in one easy lesson, just as the duodecimal system would ease arithmetic and spelling reform would help with literacy.