Management Measures – Spatial - Answer

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

You close your eyes and ask this question: How many of the states of the USA have a land-level borde crossing problem, and by “border problem” I mean “Need to monitor a border that would permit inflow of illegal immigrants.

If you can’t do that, try a simpler question: “Does the USA have more than 50%, or does it have less than 50% of its states with Customs & immigration booths and officers?”

The first seventeen states listed are, I believe, internal to the USA federal boundaries.

Note that I say that Illinois is internal; although it fronts onto Lake Michigan I believe that Lake Michigan sits within the federal boundary, and hence Illinois by definition must sit inside the federal boundary. In this I am being conservative (and increasing the number of internal states).

If I have it right, 16 states are internal and 34 states have a federal land-crossing boundary.

That’s 66%

Did you “feel” is was that big, or did you “feel” it would be much smaller – say 20 states with federal borders?

And now, how do you feel about your “feeling” for something as distinct from sitting down and measuring it?

Note that the quantifiers we are using here are Boolean – does a state have a federal boundary or not? Yes/No?

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