US borders redrawn around economic, cultural lines

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So what are the factors considered in redrawing state borders anew?

Appropriate size - It is desired that a typical proposed state have the same size and population as a typical real (existing) state, except for the small states in the Northeast. That would suggest that the total number of proposed states be somewhere between 40 and 50; the current draft calls for 48 states. No state should be too large or too small in either area or population.
Economy and Demographics - Each state has some common economic or cultural theme. Its economy is characterized by a set of industries that are of mutual concern to the majority of its population, or a majority of the population belongs to or is sympathetic to a particular race, religion, ethnic group, or some cultural theme. Ultimately, the majority of the people in each state should expect the same from their government.
Minimization of local border effects - Borders are drawn in areas of low population density. Major metropolitan areas are never split by state lines. Except in the Northeast, where the population density is consistently high, even a small town split is a rare event, and happens only when difficult to avoid. This avoids the paradoxical effect of commuting across a state line, or of one's next door neighbor living in a different state.
One way to accomplish this goal is to ensure that no combined statistical area (CSA), as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), straddles the border between two or more proposed states.
Minimization of bipolarity - Each state should have a single urban hub of commerce where feasible. With no more than 50 states, this is not always easy, so several states have multiple urban hubs. I have one acquaintance who undertook a similar project and was very adamant about avoiding bipolarity, and his draft proposes 60 states. My philosophy is more moderate; it calls for discretion, but not strict avoidance, in the use of bipolarity.
Alignment with historical proposals - Throughout U.S. history there have been a number of proposals for states to split, or for parts of states to secede from their parent states and possibly join other states. My proposal to redraw all states follows many of these historical proposals, at least approximately. For more information on historical proposals to change state boundaries, see these references:
Partition proposals
Secession proposals
California proposals
New York Proposals
It is sometimes tempting to draw a border in a way that would define a a state to "match" a likely name for it. I made an effort to resist this sometimes subconscious tendency. My philosophy is to draw the borders without regard to what the names might be, and THEN choose the best possible name for each state. In sum: borders first, names second.

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My proposed borders follow these types of paths:
Lines of latitude and longitude
Rivers, where the river is not near an urban center with suburbs on both sides. This results in some rivers being used as borders in a very fragmented way; e.g. the Mississippi, which is a state border for almost its entire length for the real states, is an on-again-off-again border for proposed states, to avoid splitting the metropolitan areas of St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, the Quad Cities, or Minneapolis / St Paul.
Drainage divides make particularly good borders since they often follow mountain ranges, which almost always have low population density and are barriers to commerce. A further justification for this type of border is water rights, since neighboring states would be in separate watersheds, thus minimizing disputes between states.
Federal lands - since national parks and nationals forests are more subject to Federal laws and less subject to state laws than other types of lands, state borders are less consequential on Federal lands, hence there is less border effect, and I often drew borders through Federal lands when that option was convenient.
Property boundaries - I used these as borders only when a border drawn using one of the other methods would split a town and there was no easier way to modify the border to go around the town.

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