Whatcom County, WA Redistricting and Political Geography

[muon2]

Nice work. I have the added appreciation of a week vacation this summer in your fine county so I spent a bit of time in Birch Bay and Bellingham as well as points in between.

I think your plan makes sense as it still maintains compact community areas, but it doesn't overly pack Pubs into one district. Your plan also better follows the Census subdivisions of the county, which can be viewed as a neural source for a split. It helps all plans that Bellingham is almost exactly 2/5 of the county population.

[muon2]

So it looks like imgur ate all of my images while I was away.  Sad.

Well here is the official district map that was approved a few days ago:

https://wa-whatcomcounty.civicplus.com/DocumentCenter/View/17269

Should be 4-1 Democrats most of the time, but the coastal and mountain districts have been drawn to include enough GOP farmland area that they might be competitive in a good GOP year.

I don't really like the fact that the farmland district goes all the way to the city.  Pretty sure my old apartment is in it too, though the map isn't detailed enough for me to tell for sure. 

Overall they did a decent job.

With Bellingham proper divided into two districts, there wasn't a lot else they could do with the eastern district.