The 100k Districts Series

[muon2]

Fantastic thread.

The huge states like CA, NY, TX or FL will be long, but I suppose really fun.

Given the time it took us to work on CA with 53 districts, I suspect that the division into 373 districts will indeed be long.

So far the districts have been able to use counties and county subdivisions smaller than a district. I will be curious to see what criteria are applied to divide subdivisions that are larger than a district.

[muon2]

All of Massachusetts that I'll do for now:



Berkshire 198,126, 72.2% D
Franklin & North Berkshire 104,465, 69.4% D
Amherst 103,899, 85.0% Anglo, 62.0% D
Northampton & Westfield 105,353, 89.0% Anglo, 56.9% D
West Springfield, Agawam & Holyoke 103,367, 72.3% Anglo, 22.0% Hispanic, 53.5% R (and Southwick actually, while lacking one precinct in Holyoke. Splitting Southwick instead couldn't be done within the 5000 tolerance level)
Springfield North & Chicopee 104,069, 58.8% White, 27.1% Hispanic, 10.6% Black, 56.8% D
Springfield South 104,289, 37.8% Hispanic, 37.4% White, 19.6% Black, 66.1% D
Hampden East 100,593, 59.3 R

These "averages" are from all I hear way too R heavy.

I found a way you can avoid the split of Holyoke. Start with the north part of Berkshire down to Richmond, Lenox, and Washington. Link Franklin county with the eastern and western sides of Hampshire county. Take central Hampshire as a district except for Easthampton and Southampton. Those two towns link with Holyoke and Westfield to make a district. The rest of western Hampden links with southern Berkshire.

[muon2]

8 Districts in Essex, Revere and Winthrop, aka 7 in Essex excluding Saugus
Revere, Winthrop, Saugus 95,880, 55.5 R, 74.7-15.4
Lynn 105,335, 50.6 D, 54.2-27.8
Salem 105,420, 50.7 R, 84.2. Splits Peabody with...
Beverly etc (light green) 97,721, 57.6 R, 92.6
Methuen West - Andover 101,260, 61.6 R, 82.7 Splits Methuen with...
Lawrence - Methuen East 100,877, 56.7 D, 34.5-59.3
Haverhill & Amesbury 102,477, 58.2 R, 86.0
Gloucester & Newburyport 103,441, 53.1 R, 94.9
There is but one alignment of towns that avoids splitting Methuen (or Lawrence. Or Haverhill, possibly - not sure about that), and it crosses the county line and it didn't exactly make the task in Middlesex easier, either. Even though the average populations would have been more balanced.

Since you were willing to hop from southern Bristol to the Islands, I think you have a better solution to Essex with no splits. The key is to know that Nahant is really an island with an artificial causeway to connect it by road to Lynn. There are still some who travel by boat to leave Nahant. With that in mind, you could put Nahant in the district with Saugus, etc. since it was under population anyway.

With Nahant out of the way, keep your Haverill district (+1744), and place Lawrence with North Andover (+3996). The Gloucester district goes to Boxford (+2909) and then Peabody, Danvers, Middleton, Topsfield, and Hamilton make a district (+4722). Finally within the county Salem, Beverly and Marblehead are one district (-83) and Lynn and Swampscott make the last (+3383). the remaining towns link to Middlesex. I'd rather see the counties split than the towns in New England.

[muon2]

8 Districts in Essex, Revere and Winthrop, aka 7 in Essex excluding Saugus
Revere, Winthrop, Saugus 95,880, 55.5 R, 74.7-15.4
Lynn 105,335, 50.6 D, 54.2-27.8
Salem 105,420, 50.7 R, 84.2. Splits Peabody with...
Beverly etc (light green) 97,721, 57.6 R, 92.6
Methuen West - Andover 101,260, 61.6 R, 82.7 Splits Methuen with...
Lawrence - Methuen East 100,877, 56.7 D, 34.5-59.3
Haverhill & Amesbury 102,477, 58.2 R, 86.0
Gloucester & Newburyport 103,441, 53.1 R, 94.9
There is but one alignment of towns that avoids splitting Methuen (or Lawrence. Or Haverhill, possibly - not sure about that), and it crosses the county line and it didn't exactly make the task in Middlesex easier, either. Even though the average populations would have been more balanced.

Since you were willing to hop from southern Bristol to the Islands, I think you have a better solution to Essex with no splits. The key is to know that Nahant is really an island with an artificial causeway to connect it by road to Lynn. There are still some who travel by boat to leave Nahant. With that in mind, you could put Nahant in the district with Saugus, etc. since it was under population anyway.

With Nahant out of the way, keep your Haverill district (+1744), and place Lawrence with North Andover (+3996). The Gloucester district goes to Boxford (+2909) and then Peabody, Danvers, Middleton, Topsfield, and Hamilton make a district (+4722). Finally within the county Salem, Beverly and Marblehead are one district (-83) and Lynn and Swampscott make the last (+3383). the remaining towns link to Middlesex.

Re Muon: To be precise, Methuen and Andover link to Wilmington, literally the only alignment for Methuen that doesn't split a town, and northeast Middlesex, difficult even as is, is shot straight to hell. I had that at one point, though I also had a different arrangement for the Haverhill and coastal districts.

This is what I had in mind. Methuen and Andover go into separate districts. I also only end up with one split in all of Middlesex.

[muon2]

When you get to IL I'd be fascinated to see you do it with 109K instead of 100K - ie 118 districts.

[muon2]

When you get to IL I'd be fascinated to see you do it with 109K instead of 100K - ie 118 districts.

No can do.

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Karma?

[muon2]

Hawai'i. 14 districts.
Fun to draw. Would need much higher tolerance in order not to draw ugly cross-island districts though.

So, summary for the quick reader: "Asian" is pure Asian or pure Pacific Islander, a category that makes no sense whatsoever. "Other" is, basically, Non-Hispanic Mixed Race.

Also, remember how hugely well Obama did when contemplating the presidential figures.



Hawai'i E 96762, 37-25-25-12, 79.0% Obama. More Whites than Mixeds.
Hawai'i W - Maui E - Lana'i 93738, 29-37-22-11, 73.3% Obama. Including Lana'i here helped prevent an insensible split of Maui.
Maui N 92657, 42-26-21-10, 79.4% Obama
Koko Head - Waimanalo - Moloka'i - Maui W 100380, 37-35-19-8, 70.4% Obama. Yeah, I know this crosses a well-defined line on O'ahu. But you really need to draw the island from the populated part of the interior, which opens south to Pearl Harbor, and this is what that gets you.
Kailua - Kane'ohe Bay 101893, 33-32-25-9, 68.9% Obama
Honolulu East 99812, 56-23-16-5, 71.7% Obama
Honolulu Capitol - Manoa 96803, 60-20-14-5, 73.1% Obama
Honolulu Harbor - Punchbowl 99301, 71-9-14-5, 71.6% Obama. The named divisions are because the centre of town is split, basically.
Honolulu West - Halawa Heights 95481, 54-20-13-8, 71.0% Obama
Pearl City - Waimalu - Village Park 96615, 58-13-18-8, 71.0% Obama
Mililani Town - Wahiawa 95630, 43-22-20-11, 67.7% Obama
Waipahu - 'Ewa Beach 92224, 61-11-17-9, 66.6% Obama. Precinct size constraints.
O'ahu W 96103, 42-13-29-14, 67.5% Obama
Kaua'i - O'ahu N 101543, 37-31-21-9, 72.3% Obama

Within your tolerances you could draw 10 districts on Oahu and 4 for the other islands. You'd still split Maui 3 ways but the west end and nearby islands would link to Kauai. Those four districts can be between 4-5K over. That avoids at least two of the cross-island splits to Oahu which would average 2K below for the districts.

[muon2]

The four outer islands districts would need a combined surplus of 18,438. A bit of playing around tells me it could be done with a moderate degree of disregard towards geography and one split precinct, and perhaps it could be done without split precincts and a total disregard towards any sense of logic whatsoever, but I believe I'll pass. Kauai is 200 miles from Maui.

No precinct splits are needed and it makes as much sense geographically to link Kauai to Molokai and Lanai (with a little piece of Maui) as it does to link Kauai to Oahu. If you have to fly between the islands why not just fly from Kauai to Molokai. Politically I suspect that the other islands would just as soon not be linked to Oahu in a district if it wasn't necessary.

[muon2]

The closeness of your 100K districts to the 108K size in the IL House makes for interesting comparisons. For instance on the north side of Chicago the districts are not so different than the actual House districts and as you predicted, only three of the four Latino districts are represented by a Latino, though that is as much due to city politics as it is to ethnic turnout, an effect seen even more strongly in the SW Chicago Latino areas.

Your Black city districts would probably have trouble in court. That level of packing generally doesn't hold up. Any districts over 80% are suspect, but you would have to make the case that preserving the city boundary requires that level of packing. The Chicago wards are that packed, precisely because they can't cross the lines.