NY with 26 CDs in 2020

[Torie]

Here is my effort for an upstate NY map for 2022 assuming 26 CD’s.  I redrew all the CD’s from NY-16 on up.  My CD, NY-19 disappears as expected, with its remnants (including in particular, Columbia County) after NY-22 and NY-20 suck up most of it, appended to NY-18. Two lean Pub CD’s, NY-22 and NY-23, move to even, and one even CD, NY-21, moves from even to tilt Pub.   As long as Hanna in NY-22 is around, the Pubs have no worries about NY-22 (Hanna will be 71 in 2022), and presumably Reed absent something going wrong, will be able to hold on in NY-23. If Gibson were still around, the battle between him on Maloney in NY-18 would have been awesome, but he won’t be, so Maloney should have the edge, but lots on money will be dumped into that CD election after election.   How exciting for me! Maybe I should run someday.

The single most unhappy person will be Nita Lowey in NY-17, as her districts moves from strong lean Dem to just tilt Dem.  But Nita Lowey will not be around in 2022 presumably (she will be 84). But I would advise the Dems to replace her with a moderate if I were them, in anticipation of the inevitable. The shape of the state sort of dictates the map configuration at the Westchester area choke point, through which all the population changes flow. Almost all of the lost CD is from upstate NY (about 5/6 of a CD).  

Oh Louise Slaughter would not be thrilled either, but fortunately for her, she won’t be running in the new lines next year, and her replacement should be pretty safe in NY-25, absent something very odd going down.

All in all, the Pubs should be reasonably happy with the new map, from an upstate NY standpoint.

[traininthedistance]

Torie- wouldn't the Rochester district want to take Ontario rather than Orleans, if the UCCs stay the same?

I have to feel that 18 could be a little less nicer, somehow, as well.  Perhaps have 17 go up the east side of the Hudson and make 18 mostly a Rockland-Orange district?

Certainly Albany and the North Country are far better than muon's map, that's good at least.

[Torie]

Torie- wouldn't the Rochester district want to take Ontario rather than Orleans, if the UCCs stay the same?

I have to feel that 18 could be a little less nicer, somehow, as well.  Perhaps have 17 go up the east side of the Hudson and make 18 mostly a Rockland-Orange district?

Certainly Albany and the North Country are far better than muon's map, that's good at least.

I didn't want to tri-chop Livingston, and if Ontario were chopped, that would make my foray into Livingston by NY-23 a traveling chop, and I disliked the idea of chopping into Allegheny by NY-23 in lieu of Livingston. Your suggestion for NY-17 and NY-18 strikes me as an excellent one. Odd I didn't think of that. Yet another senior moment!

[muon2]

Torie's map has some attractive features, but I want to follow up on train's observation on the Rochester UCC. The UCC consists of Monroe and Ontario, and my projection puts their combined population and 870K which is about 12% more than the population of one of 26 CDs. If the UCC expands at all this decade, Wayne is the most likely candidate since the Rochester UCC is already in that county and it wouldn't take much to link up the Palmyra and Newark urban clusters along NY-31.

With that in mind I intentionally put both Ontario and Wayne in the Syracuse district. I slightly overpopulated the Syracuse CD with the intention of taking population from Ontario in that district to beef up the slightly undersized Rochester CD. That way I could keep the UCC cover and pack rules intact there with a minimum of chops. The initial Torie plan would incur both a cover and pack penalty for Rochester.

Note that since a single chop of Ontario in my plan would bring both the Rochester and Syracuse CDs within 0.5% of the projected quota. Similarly chops of just Erie and Steuben are sufficient to bring the other western CDs within 0.5%. In the Hudson valley I selected the counties such that chops in Franklin and Sullivan are sufficient to bring those four CDs within the 0.5% margin. Of the aforementioned chops, only Erie is a macrochop.

[Torie]

A yes, it’s gorgeous – just gorgeous. Well done, Train!  ☺ Now, Maloney is very happy in NY-18, and reasonably safe, and well, when Lowey retires, finding a moderate Dem to replace to hold NY-17 becomes job one for the Dems. NY-17 is basically the old Gilman seat (a liberal Jewish Pub), that was put on the chopping block when there was a bipartisan gerrymander in 1992 I believe (dumping the liberal Pub who was not much use to the Pubs along with a Dem is what bipartisan gerrymanders are all about).

I didn't realize Ontario was part of the Rochester UCC. I will fix that when I return from having a late lunch. I tend to doubt that Wayne will join the Rochester UCC. It's losing population. If and when it does, adjustments can be made, but NY-24 has nice lines, and adding Ontario to it would be unfortunate, and mess up the map, in particular NY-27 and NY-23 I suspect. The real map drawers are not going to care of course whether Ontario (or Wayne) is part of the UCC of not. It certainly is not obvious on the ground. 



 

[muon2]

I suspect Torie and I have reversed the roles we played earlier discussing IL when he complained about some liberties I took regarding the rules due to my preference in dealing with areas in Cook. Here I'm pushing to follow the rules, yet I sense from Torie a desire to recognize political expectations in NY.

Anyway, here is my attempt to provide more detail to the upstate districts. I preserve county subdivisions, but I'm not using estimates for the county subdivisions - instead I'm apportioning the county-level projections to the subdivisions on a more uniform basis. It's less accurate, but faster that way. All the districts should be within 0.5% when projected to 2020.

I preserve all UCC cover and pack rules, except the Albany pack. In exchange there are only 6 chops and none are macrochops except the mandatory chops of Erie and Westchester. None of my districts are unusually erose, so I expect a good score there. I don't see why one wants 9 chops (counting both fragments connecting Westchester to upstate) just to avoid the penalty for the Albany pack. Also, by placing Columbia with Dutchess and a piece of Ulster with Orange Torie's map incurs a pack penalty for the NYC UCC, which negates the avoidance of a penalty in the Albany UCC.

[Torie]

UCC issues resolved.  NY-22 looks kind of ugly, but whatever.  The Delaware and Herkimer chops are natural microchops (which is good, because the Delaware chop needs to go away, or we have a traveling chop problem), and with some giggling of the 0.5% population variance elbow room, the Alleghany and Broome chops can go away as well, so there are 6 upstate chops, including Westchester and Rockland, by my count.

Muon2's and my figures don't quite match. NY-18 needs to cross the Hudson into Rockland, if NY-18 is not to cross into Columbia County. It's 18,620 short in population.

Oh yes, there is a bridge between Columbia and Greene Counties - appropriately named the Rip Van Winkle Bridge. I know, because I drive over it all the time!    Greene is our competitor county. We here in Columbia County, consider it quite an inferior - and backward - place. Lots of inbred gun toting nutters up there in the Catskills.

The Pubs would quite like this plan. Maloney will be hard to jettison anyway (and he's gay, so that's a plus for the "gay mafia" crowd ), and Lowey is getting old, so NY-17 looks like ripe hanging fruit. Meanwhile, NY-22 looks a bit safer in case Hanna retires. I am not in love with the cover rule myself for UCC's, so I would never draw this plan. I like keeping Columbia County in the CD on the east side of the river. In all events, I doubt any court would draw a plan like this in the area of controversy - unless of course transfixed by the amicus brief Muon2 submits, while tossing mine in the trash.  
 


 

[muon2]

Westchester is growing at 0.6% per year so far this decade. Projecting out to 2020 adds 56 K in the county that aren't in DRA. Your CD 18 has Dutchess (295K) and Putnam (99K) leaving 385K from Westchester. 385K/1005K is 38%. 38% of 56K is 21K so with a uniform spread of the growth as I described, DRA should show CD 18 as 21K low with its 2010 data. DRA shows it 18.6K low for a difference of 2.4K. That's within 0.5% so my CD is ok for 2020.

Your chopped Delaware has become a bridge between whole counties which is forbidden under the rules.

Suffolk (projected 1516K) will be underpopulated for 2 CDs in 2020 by 43K, but it looks like you cut into it from Nassau.

You mention microchops, but I thought we abandoned them in part at your request.

[Torie]

Westchester is growing at 0.6% per year so far this decade. Projecting out to 2020 adds 56 K in the county that aren't in DRA. Your CD 18 has Dutchess (295K) and Putnam (99K) leaving 385K from Westchester. 385K/1005K is 38%. 38% of 56K is 21K so with a uniform spread of the growth as I described, DRA should show CD 18 as 21K low with its 2010 data. DRA shows it 18.6K low for a difference of 2.4K. That's within 0.5% so my CD is ok for 2020.

Your chopped Delaware has become a bridge between whole counties which is forbidden under the rules.

Suffolk (projected 1516K) will be underpopulated for 2 CDs in 2020 by 43K, but it looks like you cut into it from Nassau.

You mention microchops, but I thought we abandoned them in part at your request.

I will deal with all this later. I have 365,000 for Westchester, not 385,000. What number do you have for the cut of NY-16 into the Bronx? If your number is correct, the chop into Delaware goes away of course.  I also see that the chop from Monroe has to go into Livingston, not Ontario, to get rid of the Allegheny chop. My NY-23 CD is thus in error. My bad. So if the cover rule obtains, it's a coin toss between where the Monroe County CD chop goes.

[muon2]

When I add up all the projected county pops (20,269K) and divide by 26 I get 779.6K for the quota in 2020. That's the value I use to get the leftover population in Westchester. I get Dutchess+Putnam+Westchester is 159K short of 2 CDs, so that has to come out of the Bronx.

The two Buffalo UCC CDs as we both drew them project to be 9.4K short of the quota based on whole counties. That requires a chop out like mine into Steuben.

The UCC was originally designed to create a cover rule. It is only in the last few months that the notion of a pack requirement was put in to match. A pack rule by itself will tend to be a boon for the Pubs by driving the urban population into as few districts as possible. The cover rule can benefit either party depending on the size of the UCC. Without the cover rule I see no purpose to use UCCs at all.

[jimrtex]

I didn't realize Ontario was part of the Rochester UCC. I will fix that when I return from having a late lunch. I tend to doubt that Wayne will join the Rochester UCC. It's losing population. If and when it does, adjustments can be made, but NY-24 has nice lines, and adding Ontario to it would be unfortunate, and mess up the map, in particular NY-27 and NY-23 I suspect. The real map drawers are not going to care of course whether Ontario (or Wayne) is part of the UCC of not. It certainly is not obvious on the ground. 

The Rochester Urbanized Area links up with Victor along I-490, and continues on as far as Canandaigua.  Rochester is not exactly on Lake Ontario, though it has annexed to touch the lake.  The major growth is to the west, which is all in Monroe County since Rochester is to the east of the center.   The northwest corner of Ontario is west of the western edge of Wayne, and thus Ontario is as close as Wayne to Rochester.  The Rochester UA has linked into Wayne, but the roadways don't provide the growth opportunity of an interstate.

Ontario is one of the more marginal UCC counties.  Tweaking the formula a bit would drop it.

[cinyc]

Returning to the Exurb: Rural Counties Are Fastest Growing

According to an analysis by the Brookings Institute via Pew, exurban counties are fastest growing again, reversing the trend set after the Great Recession.  People are moving to the far-flung exurbs at the expense of urban areas.  While this wasn't true of the New York City area in my analysis, it appears to be true elsewhere.

[Torie]

When I add up all the projected county pops (20,269K) and divide by 26 I get 779.6K for the quota in 2020. That's the value I use to get the leftover population in Westchester. I get Dutchess+Putnam+Westchester is 159K short of 2 CDs, so that has to come out of the Bronx.

The two Buffalo UCC CDs as we both drew them project to be 9.4K short of the quota based on whole counties. That requires a chop out like mine into Steuben.

The UCC was originally designed to create a cover rule. It is only in the last few months that the notion of a pack requirement was put in to match. A pack rule by itself will tend to be a boon for the Pubs by driving the urban population into as few districts as possible. The cover rule can benefit either party depending on the size of the UCC. Without the cover rule I see no purpose to use UCCs at all.

Below are my numbers FWIW. Did you use April 1, 2010 and April 1, 2020 as the bracket dates for the population change extrapolations?

Regarding your comments on the cover and pack rules for UCC's, sometimes the pack rule helps the Dems, as in Kansas certainly, and perhaps Nebraska. The pack rule would help the Pubs where a metro area as a whole is more Dem than the hinterlands. The Pubs used to chop Rochester and Columbus with regularity, and if that is used as the county chop without penalty, it would not hurt the map score that much. And sometimes the suburbs are just as Pub, if not more so, than the hinterlands, e.g., Indianapolis, and Cincinnati, so the pack rule there does not help the Pubs, and may hurt it. I don't think the cover rule systematically helps either party either in general.

With the pack rule, ignoring the cover rule, can only cause mischief up to about half the population of a UCC. For myself, what is important is the size of the "violation" of the cover rule. Minor violations, like I did when NY-17 took in about 17,500 people in Ulster, I don't think violates the spirit of the rule to the extent it should be borne in mind. That is why I wanted to base the cover rule on macrochop increments, with a chop less than a microchip having no penalty. Anyway, I could also hew to the cover rule, by having NY-18 chop into Greene County, with NY-17 getting out of Ulster by chopping more deeply into Westchester County. But that makes for a much more problematical map, which will never, ever be drawn.

This assumes of course that my numbers are accurate, which perhaps they are not. If not, and yours are, I suspect that NY-17 need not chop into Ulster in all events, or it will be very close. This is all projection anyway. Given the 17K is based on what is going on in the state as a whole, and how much upstate is stagnant or losing population vis a vis how much the NYC area is growing, the odds are really about 50-50 at this point either way.

My main purpose in doing this actually, is to submit a 26 and 27 CD map to the local press, because it will be of interest that our CD is slated to undergo massive changes in the next census, due to the unusual shape of the state. Thus I was focusing on what would seem most likely to be drawn, absent the Dems entirely controlling the process, or some weirdo bipartisan gerrymander. What I think is most likely to be drawn, is my map (putting aside the Rochester issue), as amended by Train, to keep NY-18 on the east side of the Hudson River. That is much more likely than NY-18 crossing over into Orange County. NY has a long tradition of keeping Orange and Rockland Counties together, and it makes sense.

[muon2]

When I add up all the projected county pops (20,269K) and divide by 26 I get 779.6K for the quota in 2020. That's the value I use to get the leftover population in Westchester. I get Dutchess+Putnam+Westchester is 159K short of 2 CDs, so that has to come out of the Bronx.

The two Buffalo UCC CDs as we both drew them project to be 9.4K short of the quota based on whole counties. That requires a chop out like mine into Steuben.

The UCC was originally designed to create a cover rule. It is only in the last few months that the notion of a pack requirement was put in to match. A pack rule by itself will tend to be a boon for the Pubs by driving the urban population into as few districts as possible. The cover rule can benefit either party depending on the size of the UCC. Without the cover rule I see no purpose to use UCCs at all.

Below are my numbers FWIW. Did you use April 1, 2010 and April 1, 2020 as the bracket dates for the population change extrapolations?

Regarding your comments on the cover and pack rules for UCC's, sometimes the pack rule helps the Dems, as in Kansas certainly, and perhaps Nebraska. The pack rule would help the Pubs where a metro area as a whole is more Dem than the hinterlands. The Pubs used to chop Rochester and Columbus with regularity, and if that is used as the county chop without penalty, it would not hurt the map score that much. With the pack rule, ignoring the cover rule, can only cause mischief up to about half the population of a UCC. For myself, what is important is the size of the "violation" of the cover rule. Minor violations, like I did when NY-17 took in about 17,500 people in Ulster, I don't think violates the spirit of the rule to the extent it should be borne in mind. That is why I wanted to base the cover rule on macrochop increments, with a chop less than a microchip having no penalty. Anyway, I could also hew to the cover rule, by having NY-18 chop into Greene County, with NY-17 getting out of Ulster by chopping more deeply into Westchester County. But that makes for a much more problematical map, which will never, ever be drawn.

This assumes of course that my numbers are accurate, which perhaps they are not. If not, and yours are, I suspect that NY-17 need not chop into Ulster in all events, or it will be very close. This is all projection anyway. Given the 17K is based on what is going on in the state as a whole, and how much upstate is stagnant or losing population vis a vis how much the NYC area is growing, the odds are really about 50-50 at this point either way.

My main purpose in doing this actually, is to submit a 26 and 27 CD map to the local press, because it will be of interest that our CD is slated to undergo massive changes in the next census, due to the unusual shape of the state. Thus I was focusing on what would seem most likely to be drawn, absent the Dems entirely controlling the process, or some weirdo bipartisan gerrymander. What I think is most likely to be drawn, is my map (putting aside the Rochester issue), as amended by Train, to keep NY-18 on the east side of the Hudson River. That is much more likely than NY-18 crossing over into Orange County. NY has a long tradition of keeping Orange and Rockland Counties together, and it makes sense.

I take the 4/1/10 numbers and the 7/1/14 estimate and I calculate a constant growth rate for each county (not linear population change). I then project that to 4/1/20 using the calculated rate. I emailed you my population file a couple days ago. That has the numbers I'm using.

[Torie]

Ah, that explains it. What financial function did you use on excel to calculate the annualized percentage rate (which presumably you then compounded for 10 years). I can't remember it now. You method is the correct one. Of course!

Ah, never mind. It's the power function (percentage gain for 4.429 years to the 1/4.429 power). That gives one the annualized rate, which you then take to the 10th power. Aren't you impressed that a lawyer could figure this out? It's used in finance all the time. It appears to magnify the gains and losses a tad, doesn't it? So I think my little Ulster problem goes away. Isn't that grand?

I seem however to come up with a different state population projection and quota number than you did however, and our input numbers match (except for a difference in 4 persons for the current estimate as of 7-1-14). Daily rather than annual compounding does not seem to change the result. Is that because the total number changes when you extrapolate county by county and then sum (since the counties with more population in total are growing faster than the balance of the state)?  Tricky stuff isn't it for non mathematicians.



Yup, that explains it. I get 20,269,149 doing it county by county, which divided by 26 equals 779,582.6398. I always want to know how the black box works, which is why the critical vote mathematics that Jimtex was so helpful (not to mention patient) in walking me though, so endlessly fascinated me. So my mappie will need some tweaking.

[muon2]

One problem with projections this far out is that projections based on the whole will differ from projections based on the sum. If I take the state estimate released for 2014 it equals the sum of the county estimates for 2014 as one would expect. The sum of my county projections to 2020 gives 20,269,018 (different because I round the estimate to 4.25 years to account for the 3 months from 4/1 to 7/1). But the state projection to 2020 using my same formula gives 20,300,327. Fortunately that's only a 0.15% discrepancy and the estimate shifts from year to year are much larger, so one can treat the sum of county projections as if they are the state projection.

[Torie]

And below is the tweaked map. Not much change. If one uses the 0.5% variance rule (this map is drawn to have equal population CD’s), one can eliminate the Broome, Herkimer, Alleghany and Ulster chops (with the last one eliminating the cover and pack problem), and in exchange for the cover penalty for Rochester, one gets the ability in exchange to eliminate the chop of Alleghany, so it is a wash. Some thought perhaps should be given to upping the UCC county test from 40% to 50% perhaps. How was the 40% figure arrived at? Ontario County as Jimtex suggested is kind of an ersatz UCC county.

Anyway, I drew this map, as one a non partisan outfit or court might draw.   Some of the alternatives suggested to win the Muon2 rule contest, assuming this map is not it, are just not going to be drawn. For example, if the cover/pack problem remained for Ulster, a higher scoring map would just cross the river into Greene or Ulster counties from MY-18. That just isn’t going to happen – nor should it.

[Torie]

For some reason, suddenly I can’t type posts anymore, except as  copy and paste. Weird.

[muon2]

I get your motivation now. Political realities are important, and it would be interesting to see how something like this fared on the Pareto test. Could it make the cut to go to the finals where it should fare well?

If the populations are equal then your chop of Ulster should be about 10K. The NYC UCC + Sullivan is only 3K over the population of 18 CDs. That's why it became the basis for my plan. Since Columbia projects to have 13K less than Sullivan, that leaves 10K to come from Ulster.

I still don't see how you chop into Suffolk when it is underpopulated for 2 CDs. The chop should be from Suffolk into Nassau.

[Torie]

I get your motivation now. Political realities are important, and it would be interesting to see how something like this fared on the Pareto test. Could it make the cut to go to the finals where it should fare well?

If the populations are equal then your chop of Ulster should be about 10K. The NYC UCC + Sullivan is only 3K over the population of 18 CDs. That's why it became the basis for my plan. Since Columbia projects to have 13K less than Sullivan, that leaves 10K to come from Ulster.

I still don't see how you chop into Suffolk when it is underpopulated for 2 CDs. The chop should be from Suffolk into Nassau.

I had not redrawn the Long Island burb CD's until this morning. The map is below. I redrew from my prior good government map CD's 1, 2, 3 and 4, and then reconnected NY-06.  There is no point in going further with the data we have in redrawing the NYC CD's, which are driven by the VRA and cross borough lines all over the place. Interestingly, until I realized Smithtown needed to be appended to NY-01 (to minimize the town chop size), CD's 1,2, 3 and 4 all were just about dead even from a PVI standpoint. With the Smithtown revision, NY-01 moves to about a 2% Pub PVI, but NY-02 is still in the even range, at about a 0.5% Dem PVI. NY-03 is about 0.5% Pub, with NY-04 about a 2.0% Dem PVI. So the four CD's achieve near perfect political symmetry (circa 2008 anyway).

As to NYC come to think of it, one potentially nettlesome issue for the redistrictors assuming the black population in Brooklyn is lagging, is what to do about the two existing black CD's there. Does one create two say 40% BVAP CD's, or maybe even high 30's, or one black CD over 50% BVAP. What will the evidence show on that one, as to what percentage will allow African Americans to elect the candidate of their choice. It tandem with that question, will be just what percentage of Hispanics can be expected to vote by 2022, and over the course of the ensuing decade Since the Hispanics are cheek to towel with the blacks, and in many precincts per the 2010 census, living in the same precincts in high percentages. It potentially is an evidentiary nightmare, and so what is one to do, absent the evidence being researched, and adduced?

[jimrtex]

Some thought perhaps should be given to upping the UCC county test from 40% to 50% perhaps. How was the 40% figure arrived at? Ontario County as Jimtex suggested is kind of an ersatz UCC county.

Ontario qualifies under the greater than 25K in an urbanized area rule.  To be a metropolitan statistical area (as opposed to a micropolitan statistical area) requires that the core urban area be an urbanized area.  UCC's are based on metropolitan statistical areas.  An urbanized area is an urban area with more than 50K.

The reasoning for including counties with 25K or more in an urbanized area, is that 25K is half the population needed to qualify as an urbanized area.  To be an urbanized area, but have between 25K and 50K in a county requires that the urbanized area straddle the county line.  And thus the population can be thought of as substantial contribution to the urban area qualifying as an urbanized area, and the core-based statistical area qualifying as a metropolitan statistical area.

In this particular case, Ontario has absolutely nothing to do with Rochester being a metropolitan statistical area.   But to exclude it might require a definition based on relative contribution of a county to the metropolitan statistical area population.

While the 40% rule technically applies to all counties, it only really applies to two small counties.  Nicollet, MN and Montour, PA.   Nicollet only has 13K in the Mankato Urbanized Area, but that is 41% of the county's population.  That is, the urbanized area portion of Nicollet really does characterize the county's population.

Originally there was consideration of 25K/25% or 50K/50% rules.   40K/40% was an alternative.

[Torie]

Thanks for the elaboration. "Straddle" means the line of the urbanized area is connected at some point (no matter how small) to the county line of the other UCC county?

[traininthedistance]

I get your motivation now. Political realities are important, and it would be interesting to see how something like this fared on the Pareto test. Could it make the cut to go to the finals where it should fare well?

If the populations are equal then your chop of Ulster should be about 10K. The NYC UCC + Sullivan is only 3K over the population of 18 CDs. That's why it became the basis for my plan. Since Columbia projects to have 13K less than Sullivan, that leaves 10K to come from Ulster.

I still don't see how you chop into Suffolk when it is underpopulated for 2 CDs. The chop should be from Suffolk into Nassau.

I had not redrawn the Long Island burb CD's until this morning. The map is below. I redrew from my prior good government map CD's 1, 2, 3 and 4, and then reconnected NY-06.  There is no point in going further with the data we have in redrawing the NYC CD's, which are driven by the VRA and cross borough lines all over the place. Interestingly, until I realized Smithtown needed to be appended to NY-01 (to minimize the town chop size), CD's 1,2, 3 and 4 all were just about dead even from a PVI standpoint. With the Smithtown revision, NY-01 moves to about a 2% Pub PVI, but NY-02 is still in the even range, at about a 0.5% Dem PVI. NY-03 is about 0.5% Pub, with NY-04 about a 2.0% Dem PVI. So the four CD's achieve near perfect political symmetry (circa 2008 anyway).

As to NYC come to think of it, one potentially nettlesome issue for the redistrictors assuming the black population in Brooklyn is lagging, is what to do about the two existing black CD's there. Does one create two say 40% BVAP CD's, or maybe even high 30's, or one black CD over 50% BVAP. What will the evidence show on that one, as to what percentage will allow African Americans to elect the candidate of their choice. It tandem with that question, will be just what percentage of Hispanics can be expected to vote by 2022, and over the course of the ensuing decade Since the Hispanics are cheek to towel with the blacks, and in many precincts per the 2010 census, living in the same precincts in high percentages. It potentially is an evidentiary nightmare, and so what is one to do, absent the evidence being researched, and adduced?

Well, if you're allowing the Brooklyn districts to go under 50% black (and you certainly can do so, while preserving the "candidate of choice" test) then presumably you could also keep the SE Queens district entirely within Queens, even with a BVAP in the mid-40s or whatever.

[Torie]

I added NY-11 and NY-08 to the map, and tweaked the lines in NYC to follow ward boundaries where possible. Around NY-08 that was not possible to do entirely, since the ward boundaries there are so erose between my NY-08 and NY-10. NY-08 does not have the old PVI numbers on the chart, because the court did not draw a south Brooklyn seat in remotely the way that I drew it (the court screwed the Pubs out of a seat in south Brooklyn), so the comparison would be meaningless.

The skew using the 2008 numbers for the CD’s, but the 2012 numbers for the state PVI (10% Dem), is zero. Since NY trended a couple of points Dem in 2012, if the 2008 state PVI were used (about 8% Dem), the skew would be 1 in favor of the Dems.  It’s probably more skewed using the 2012 numbers for everything, given most areas of the state trended Dem, but that is not possible to calculate given Dave’s application uses the 2008 election numbers.  In Democratic states, the skew should typically be lower than a more Pub state, since the exponential rise in Dem seats as the PVI moves their way, would tend to offset the natural Pub geographic advantage that exists in most states when drawing CD lines hewing to jurisdictional boundaries.

To answer Train's question, I think the correct standard is to get up to 50% BVAP (but no more if securing a higher percentage involves racial gerrymandering, because as SCOTUS has just reminded us, that is illegal racial packing), if the minority community is contiguous, unless it costs them a seat within a contiguous area, and then you shave the percentage down to see if the second seat can be preserved. The subject CD probably only has maybe 12% HCVAP, so shaving it down much in a zone where the neighboring areas are not black minority friendly would be problematical anyway. Keeping the CD all in Queens will drop the BVAP percentage circa the 2010 census, down to about 46% FWIW. I suspect the percentage is lower now for the portion of the CD within Queens. My impression is that the black population change there is sluggish or declining. So it may arguably be necessary for the CD to jut more into Nassau which is where the black population is migrating (to the extent it is not decamping from the NYC area entirely). Also FWIW, the court when it drew the map for this CD, saw it my way.

 
 

[muon2]

I added NY-11 and NY-08 to the map, and tweaked the lines in NYC to follow ward boundaries where possible. Around NY-08 that was not possible to do entirely, since the ward boundaries there are so erose between my NY-08 and NY-10. NY-08 does not have the old PVI numbers on the chart, because the court did not draw a south Brooklyn seat in remotely the way that I drew it (the court screwed the Pubs out of a seat in south Brooklyn), so the comparison would be meaningless.

The skew using the 2008 numbers for the CD’s, but the 2012 numbers for the state PVI (10% Dem), is zero. Since NY trended a couple of points Dem in 2012, if the 2008 state PVI were used (about 8% Dem), the skew would be 1 in favor of the Dems.  It’s probably more skewed using the 2012 numbers for everything, given most areas of the state trended Dem, but that is not possible to calculate given Dave’s application uses the 2008 election numbers.  In Democratic states, the skew should typically be lower than a more Pub state, since the exponential rise in Dem seats as the PVI moves their way, would tend to offset the natural Pub geographic advantage that exists in most states when drawing CD lines hewing to jurisdictional boundaries.

To answer Train's question, I think the correct standard is to get up to 50% BVAP (but no more if securing a higher percentage involves racial gerrymandering, because as SCOTUS has just reminded us, that is illegal racial packing), if the minority community is contiguous, unless it costs them a seat within a contiguous area, and then you shave the percentage down to see if the second seat can be preserved. The subject CD probably only has maybe 12% HCVAP, so shaving it down much in a zone where the neighboring areas are not black minority friendly would be problematical anyway. Keeping the CD all in Queens will drop the BVAP percentage circa the 2010 census, down to about 46% FWIW. I suspect the percentage is lower now for the portion of the CD within Queens. My impression is that the black population change there is sluggish or declining. So it may arguably be necessary for the CD to jut more into Nassau which is where the black population is migrating (to the extent it is not decamping from the NYC area entirely). Also FWIW, the court when it drew the map for this CD, saw it my way.

 
 

It looks like you chop towns in Westchester. I assumed that villages were like in MI, and subsidiary to towns that are the appropriate entity to keep intact. Is your experience there telling you that towns are less important than villages?

Also, do you have HVAP and BVAP numbers for your NYC districts. I put together a plan minimizing borough chops and I want to see how it compares.