ArchiveFM

Back in 2014 the town of Seneca, Nebraska was deeply divided. How divided? They were so fed up with each other that some citizens began circulating a petition that proposed a radical solution. If a majority wanted to they'd self-destruct, end the town and wipe their community off the map.  Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.    
Duration
33m
Broadcast on
12 Oct 2016
Audio Format
other

Back in 2014 the town of Seneca, Nebraska was deeply divided. How divided? They were so fed up with each other that some citizens began circulating a petition that proposed a radical solution. If a majority wanted to they'd self-destruct, end the town and wipe their community off the map. 

Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.    


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

WNYC Studios is supported by ODU. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. ODU solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. ODU is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out ODU at ODOO.com. That's ODOO.com. Radialab is supported by AT&T. We all love to connect via video calls or texts. Right now, at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with iPhone trade-in, any condition. It has the ultimate Pro camera system and big leap in battery life so you can turn this deal into a long lasting connection. Learn how you can trade in your iPhone for the new iPhone 18 Pro requires trade-in of iPhone 14 or higher, excluding iPhone 16E and eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply subject to change, visit an AT&T store for details. Wait, you're listening to Radialab from WNYC. Here we go. Hi, I'm Robert Krillwich. This is Radialab, and today with me is Simon Adler. That's me. He's a reporter and producer here, and he's got us a tail. I do. It's an American tail and a kind of timely one, I think. How would you describe it? Yeah, I think it's one of those classic "us versus them" tails. Well, but actually, maybe it's an "us versus us" story in its way. Yeah, actually, I like that more because, in fact, it takes place right in America's heartland. Where in the heartland? Nebraska. Seneca, Nebraska. This tiny little town in Central West, Nebraska. Okay, it's near the town of Mullen, Nebraska, which you obviously also don't know. Yeah, that doesn't help me at all. So this is Matthew Hansen. He is a reporter with the Omaha World Herald, and a couple months back he got in touch with us because he had a story about this town. Right, so I got an email from a woman who lives a couple miles outside of town. She was really upset. Because back in 2014, the town was split in half. And in fact, there was a group of people in the town who were circulating a petition. A petition that would end the town. We circulated a petition to end the town. Yeah. They didn't want to be a town anymore. Right. Really? Yeah, you know, by law, if you have enough signatures on a petition, you can get things on the ballot. And the question that ended up on the ballot was, "Should Seneca cease to exist?"
And this split led a group of people to try to end their own town. It got us thinking about the split that seems to be this election right now. And it occurred to us that maybe, just maybe, this tiny little town in the middle of Nebraska

Transcription truncated.

Back in 2014 the town of Seneca, Nebraska was deeply divided. How divided? They were so fed up with each other that some citizens began circulating a petition that proposed a radical solution. If a majority wanted to they'd self-destruct, end the town and wipe their community off the map.  Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.