Why is the congressional map in NYC so ugly?
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  Why is the congressional map in NYC so ugly?
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Author Topic: Why is the congressional map in NYC so ugly?  (Read 879 times)
DC Al Fine
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« on: January 03, 2014, 10:37:28 PM »

I was looking at the the New York congressional map and noticed that the districts in NYC look nasty. There are districts that snake in and out of boroughs (NY-7 & NY-10) for example. Normally I'd say it was gerrymandering, but everything in NYC except Staten Island voted 80% Obama. It seems pointless to ignore natural boundaries when there' no seats to be gained. What gives? Is there some GOP pocket in Brooklyn that I don't know about?
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JerryArkansas
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« Reply #1 on: January 03, 2014, 10:40:16 PM »

There is a huge area of Orthodox jews in Brooklyn who vote extremely Republican.
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muon2
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« Reply #2 on: January 03, 2014, 11:19:11 PM »

The map was done by court order. The NYC districts were influenced by submissions to the court from a coalition of minority groups to protect their communities of interest.
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Del Tachi
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« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2014, 11:21:22 PM »

Most of the "gerrymandering" in urban areas is racial rather than partisan, NYC is no exception.
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Brittain33
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« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2014, 11:08:18 AM »

NY-7 is a Hispanic district, NY-8 and NY-9 are VRA African-American districts that expanded south in the last redistricting to add population. NY-11 is a cohesive Republican district based in Staten Island. When you put that together, you end up with an unclaimed non-minority territory in Brooklyn that has nowhere to go but with Manhattan.

The map also shows the results of the dismantling of Anthony Weiner's old 9th district which strung together non-minority, and often Republican, neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens.
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muon2
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« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2014, 12:24:39 PM »

Here was a version I put together as part of a statewide plan when the court was considering submissions. It maintains 3 black majority CDs, increases the number of Hispanic CDs over 50%, and has a an Asian plurality CD somewhat weaker. It avoids the Borough Park-Manhattan link.



VAPs for major groups:

QUEENS
CD 5 (Flushing) W 43.4%, A 33.9%
CD 6 (S Jamaica) B 50.4%
CD 7 (Corona) H 59.4%

BROOKLYN/STATEN ISLAND
CD 8 (Borough Park) W 55.7% A 23.4%
CD 9 (Staten Island) W 67.1%
CD 10 (East NY) W 23.6%, B 50.2%
CD 11 (Flatbush) W 30.6%, B 50.3%

MANHATTAN/BRONX
CD 12 (Manhattan) W 64.2%
CD 13 (Harlem) B 28.2%, H 52.1%
CD 14 (Triboro) W 54.1%, H 23.8%
CD 15 (South Bronx) B 29.3%, H 63.1%


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minionofmidas
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« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2014, 12:48:04 PM »

The problem is that the South Americans in northwest Queens barely vote (or are citizens), that the Puertoricans and Dominicans (who do vote) sometimes doubly identify as Black as well as Hispanic, that Nydia Velazquez is entrenched in the areas she actually represents (her district got whiter with gentrification over the 2000s), and that it is really drawn not as a Hispanic district but as a Puertorican and Chinese coalition district. Which is why it is its weird shape and why it was maintained in that weird shape, which in turn forced much of the remainder of the map to pick up new weirdnesses - it certainly forced the dismantling of Weiner's / Turner's district (and the worse-than-ever carveup of the Brooklyn Jewish Republican areas.)
Replace it with the effectively-new district with more Hispanics but that is actually less safe for her (and retrocesses out of some minority areas) that you have there, and suddenly you have options galore, including some fairly clean looking ones. Consider it sacrosanct, and the map draws itself.
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Sol
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« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2014, 04:33:22 PM »

The problem is that the South Americans in northwest Queens barely vote (or are citizens), that the Puertoricans and Dominicans (who do vote) sometimes doubly identify as Black as well as Hispanic, that Nydia Velazquez is entrenched in the areas she actually represents (her district got whiter with gentrification over the 2000s), and that it is really drawn not as a Hispanic district but as a Puertorican and Chinese coalition district. Which is why it is its weird shape and why it was maintained in that weird shape, which in turn forced much of the remainder of the map to pick up new weirdnesses - it certainly forced the dismantling of Weiner's / Turner's district (and the worse-than-ever carveup of the Brooklyn Jewish Republican areas.)
Replace it with the effectively-new district with more Hispanics but that is actually less safe for her (and retrocesses out of some minority areas) that you have there, and suddenly you have options galore, including some fairly clean looking ones. Consider it sacrosanct, and the map draws itself.
One thing I've never understood about that: I know a lot of folks in Sunset Park wanted to be in with Manhattan's Chinatown, but why didn't they just draw a Brooklyn Hipsters district that included both of them?

Also- putting the Hasidic areas in with Nadler is incumbent protection- those areas are very swingy (I believe they gave Gore similar percentages to McCain) and could sink Grimm or a Southern Brooklyn pubbie.
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Vosem
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« Reply #8 on: January 04, 2014, 05:38:18 PM »

Here was a version I put together as part of a statewide plan when the court was considering submissions. It maintains 3 black majority CDs, increases the number of Hispanic CDs over 50%, and has a an Asian plurality CD somewhat weaker. It avoids the Borough Park-Manhattan link.



VAPs for major groups:

QUEENS
CD 5 (Flushing) W 43.4%, A 33.9%
CD 6 (S Jamaica) B 50.4%
CD 7 (Corona) H 59.4%

BROOKLYN/STATEN ISLAND
CD 8 (Borough Park) W 55.7% A 23.4%
CD 9 (Staten Island) W 67.1%
CD 10 (East NY) W 23.6%, B 50.2%
CD 11 (Flatbush) W 30.6%, B 50.3%

MANHATTAN/BRONX
CD 12 (Manhattan) W 64.2%
CD 13 (Harlem) B 28.2%, H 52.1%
CD 14 (Triboro) W 54.1%, H 23.8%
CD 15 (South Bronx) B 29.3%, H 63.1%

Could I see the party numbers for your 8th district? Just out of curiosity.
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muon2
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« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2014, 09:50:23 PM »

Here was a version I put together as part of a statewide plan when the court was considering submissions. It maintains 3 black majority CDs, increases the number of Hispanic CDs over 50%, and has a an Asian plurality CD somewhat weaker. It avoids the Borough Park-Manhattan link.



VAPs for major groups:

QUEENS
CD 5 (Flushing) W 43.4%, A 33.9%
CD 6 (S Jamaica) B 50.4%
CD 7 (Corona) H 59.4%

BROOKLYN/STATEN ISLAND
CD 8 (Borough Park) W 55.7% A 23.4%
CD 9 (Staten Island) W 67.1%
CD 10 (East NY) W 23.6%, B 50.2%
CD 11 (Flatbush) W 30.6%, B 50.3%

MANHATTAN/BRONX
CD 12 (Manhattan) W 64.2%
CD 13 (Harlem) B 28.2%, H 52.1%
CD 14 (Triboro) W 54.1%, H 23.8%
CD 15 (South Bronx) B 29.3%, H 63.1%

Could I see the party numbers for your 8th district? Just out of curiosity.

The estimated PVIs for all the districts are at link in my post. In 2008 McCain won my CD 8 by 50.5% to 48.7%, but turnout was a very small 165K votes. The DRA partisan values (from some set of statewide elections) for that CD is D 56.4% - R 45.6%.
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Vosem
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« Reply #10 on: January 05, 2014, 12:02:01 AM »

Here was a version I put together as part of a statewide plan when the court was considering submissions. It maintains 3 black majority CDs, increases the number of Hispanic CDs over 50%, and has a an Asian plurality CD somewhat weaker. It avoids the Borough Park-Manhattan link.



VAPs for major groups:

QUEENS
CD 5 (Flushing) W 43.4%, A 33.9%
CD 6 (S Jamaica) B 50.4%
CD 7 (Corona) H 59.4%

BROOKLYN/STATEN ISLAND
CD 8 (Borough Park) W 55.7% A 23.4%
CD 9 (Staten Island) W 67.1%
CD 10 (East NY) W 23.6%, B 50.2%
CD 11 (Flatbush) W 30.6%, B 50.3%

MANHATTAN/BRONX
CD 12 (Manhattan) W 64.2%
CD 13 (Harlem) B 28.2%, H 52.1%
CD 14 (Triboro) W 54.1%, H 23.8%
CD 15 (South Bronx) B 29.3%, H 63.1%

Could I see the party numbers for your 8th district? Just out of curiosity.

The estimated PVIs for all the districts are at link in my post. In 2008 McCain won my CD 8 by 50.5% to 48.7%, but turnout was a very small 165K votes. The DRA partisan values (from some set of statewide elections) for that CD is D 56.4% - R 45.6%.

Thank you, that's very interesting.
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