Congressional districts with no large urban centers (user search)
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  Congressional districts with no large urban centers (search mode)
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Author Topic: Congressional districts with no large urban centers  (Read 1199 times)
RedSLC
SLValleyMan
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Posts: 1,484
United States


« on: January 02, 2014, 02:21:01 AM »

This was something I've been thinking about recently:

Nearly every congressional district in the country has at least one urbanized area (or a significant portion of one) within its boundaries. For those that don't know, an urbanized area is defined by the US census as a densely-populated area with at least 50,000 residents - to some extent, this can represent the cutoff point between what most people would think of as urban and rural (50,000 people is fairly close to what most would consider a city). Thus, nearly all CDs are anchored by at least one "urban center". (You can find a list of urbanized areas here: http://www2.census.gov/geo/ua/ua_st_list_ua.txt )

But there are also a few districts with little, or even no urbanized areas at all. The biggest that they have are fairly small cities (usually in the 10 to 20 thousand range). With no urban areas to unite or influence the districts, these districts are as close to "rural" as possible.

Here are a few examples that I can think of:
-MI-1 (Contains the UP and the northern LP, well to the north of any urban centers).
-MN-7 (Does contain a small urbanized population in the suburbs of Fargo and Grand Forks, but this makes up a very small part of the district's population.)
-KY-1 (Since Owensboro is not in the district, the only urbanized population is in a few suburbs of Clarksville, Tennessee).
-KY-5 (I honestly don't think this district has any urbanized area - not even a little).
-MS-1 (Pretty certain the only urbanized population resides in the southern Memphis suburbs in DeSoto County).
-OK-2 (Contains some Tulsa suburbs in Rogers county, and a very small urbanized population in some tiny suburbs of Fort Smith, Arkansas, but these make up less than 10 percent of the district's population.)
-Honorable mention: The old TN-4 (Which had a very small urbanized population - mainly from a hand that extended into Williamson County - and under a neutral map, would likely have virtually no urbanized population. The current TN-4 was drawn to pick up Murfreesboro, making it considerably more urban.)

Does anyone have any other examples?
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RedSLC
SLValleyMan
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Posts: 1,484
United States


« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2014, 11:20:48 AM »
« Edited: January 02, 2014, 11:32:31 AM by SLValleyMan »


That one contains Columbia, which is a fairly decent-sized city.

Some other ones maybe?

VA-9
WV-3
OH-6
TX-23
AL-4
GA-9
PA-5
NY-23
ME-2
IL-15
MO-8
VT-AL (largest city is Burlington around 40,000)


Most of these contain at least one urbanized area:

VA-9 - Blacksburg/Christiansburg and Bristol.
WV-3 - Huntington and Beckley.
OH-6 - Steubenville (although that's a twin city of Wierton, WV), and some suburbs of Huntington and Wheeling (though none of these are particularly large).
TX-23 - Suburban area around San Antonio (the district's share of Bexar County makes up a large portion of its population.)
AL-4 - Gadsden
GA-9 - Gainesville (as mentioned).
PA-5 - State College
NY-23 - Ithaca and Elmira
ME-2 - Bangor and Lewiston/Auburn
IL-15 - Danville
MO-8 - Cape Girardeau
VT-AL - Burlington (as you mentioned.)
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RedSLC
SLValleyMan
Jr. Member
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Posts: 1,484
United States


« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2014, 12:04:21 PM »

From the link that Flo gave, here is a list of majority-rural CD's:

Majority-rural districts:

AL-4: 65.38% rural
AR-1: 54.44% rural
AR-4: 59.17% rural
GA-9: 57.32% rural
IL-15: 51.44% rural
KY-1: 63.12% rural
KY-2: 50.23% rural
KY-5: 76.49% rural
LA-5: 51.65% rural
ME-1: 50.57% rural
ME-2: 72.11% rural
MI-1: 63.42% rural
MI-4: 63.33% rural
MN-7: 64.13% rural
MN-8: 61.53% rural
MS-1: 58.11% rural
MS-3: 56.43% rural
MO-8: 61.71% rural
NE-3: 51.79% rural
NY-19: 63.49% rural
NY-21: 57.70% rural
NY-23: 52.44% rural
NC-7: 51.98% rural
NC-11: 55.53% rural
OH-6: 57.32% urban
OK-2: 65.33% rural
PA-10: 60.21% rural
TN-6: 51.77% rural
TX-4: 51.15% rural
VT-AL: 61.10% rural
VA-5: 64.70% rural
VA-9: 58.25% rural
WV-3: 59.84% rural
WI-7: 65.22% rural

Of the 34 districts here, Obama only won six: both of Maine's CD's, Vermont-AL, NY-19, NY-21, and MN-8 (though Obama probably would have carried WI-7 in its old form).
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RedSLC
SLValleyMan
Jr. Member
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Posts: 1,484
United States


« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2014, 04:32:53 PM »

Do you mean urban clusters?

That seems to be what they're called in the census website table on the question. Under 30% UA districts...

MI 1 0.0%. Zilch.
KY 5 0.2%. Can anyone tell me where exactly these 1222 people live?
OK 2 0.7% Or these 5104?
KY 1 6.8%
KS 1 7.7%
MN 7 7.7%
MO 8 8.1%
IL 15 10.4%
NE 3 11.0%
OK 3 13.0%
MN 8 14.1%
WI 7 14.5%
MI 4 14.9%
PA 10 17.0%
MS 1 17.3%
NY 23 17.4%
VT AL 17.4%
AL 4 18.0%
OH 6 18.0%
ME 2 18.1%
VA 5 18.1%
AR 1 18.7%
AR 4 18.9%
IA 4 19.0%
PA 5 19.3%
NY 19 20.8%
NY 21 21.9%
TN 6 22.8%
VA 9 23.0%
MO 4 23.3%
MS 2 23.6%
OH 4 23.7%
MS 3 23.8%
WY AL 24.5%
WV 3 25.0%
MN 1 25.7%
MT AL 26.5%
LA 5 27.4%
TX 4 27.4%
WI 3 27.7%
IN 6 28.1%
AZ 1 29.6%
NH 2 29.9%
GA 9 30.0%

There are no Carolinas districts in this table, and only one Texas district...

Thank you! Smiley I'm kind of surprised that there are only three CD's with an UA population under 1 percent.

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RedSLC
SLValleyMan
Jr. Member
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Posts: 1,484
United States


« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2014, 04:38:12 PM »

KY 5 0.2%. Can anyone tell me where exactly these 1222 people live?
Probably in Catlettsburg or Cannonsburg, Boyd County, which is in the Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH Urbanized Area.  Southern parts of Boyd County were added to the district in the 2010 redistricting.
Cannonsburg (and some immediate surrounds; 1222 is slightly more than the CDP's population) is correct. Catlettsburg city is in KY-4 (and has more than 1222 inhabitants.)



I'm surprised it has any at all. I'm pretty certain the old KY-5 didn't have even one voter living in an urbanized area.
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RedSLC
SLValleyMan
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,484
United States


« Reply #5 on: January 02, 2014, 04:43:41 PM »

-OK-2 (Contains some Tulsa suburbs in Rogers county, and a very small urbanized population in some tiny suburbs of Fort Smith, Arkansas, but these make up less than 10 percent of the district's population.)
Just reread and immediately doublechecked this. Yes, some of those 5000 people are outside Fort Smith rather than outside Owasso. Not going to bother finding the exact figures; they are probably available if you look really hard though.

2,233 people live in Oklahoma's portion of the Fort Smith UA.

I just thought about MI-1, too. Even though Sault Ste. Marie is listed as an urban cluster, it only counts the part in the United States as part of the urban area. It doesn't count the city's much larger identically-named counterpart in Ontario. Thus, part of the district may have an "urban" feel, even if it's not officially listed as such.
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