Local vs regional road connections

[muon2]

Can you change your green color to red or blue or something? I can't read it. Sorry.

ok

Thanks. OK. What exactly are the open issues then, being specific as you can, with Torie wants that, and Muon2 wants the other, and the reason is this?

Skew is everything. This needs to be reversed engineered, so that we are confident that we can say, we have done what we can to reduce skew consistent with good maps, the types judges would like. As I have said before, that mostly turns on what is done within big subunits, not without. Thus the one bite rule, consistent with erosity patrol. That way, if the skew is not reduced within big subunits, that is because to do so, would tend to make the map ugly, and judges will not like that. What is done without, is mostly a matter of common sense, and practicality, and nothing else. Not much really turns on that as a partisan matter, absent a population accident, maybe, and maybe never, on a systematic basis.

You just laid out our greatest point of disagreement. There are too many experts on both political sides as well as among good government groups that will be highly suspicious of a system designed for a political outcome, including one so laudable as political equity. Some good gov and third party advocates would say a SKEW of 0 with a high POLARIZATION is the worst kind of bipartisan gerrymander where both parties lock in their seats for a decade. Some groups would trade SKEW for low POLARIZATION so that the candidates would be more responsive to the electorate. Look at the number of states that have said political data should not be part of the redistricting process at all.

The system is about balance of all the variables: SKEW, POLARIZATION, INEQUALITY, CHOP, and EROSITY. The Pareto set starts with the balance of CHOP and EROSITY. As you noted in your other recent post states can modify the CHOP with items like UCCs, MCCs, as well as the other variables to suit their priorities. A lot of effort went into our MI work to test the balance of the variables. When one of the variables gets built into the design of the other variables, then the Pareto balance starts to lose its meaning other than as a filter for that primary variable.

[jimrtex]

Torie, what are your criteria for where you did split swaths of unincorporated area into separate subunits? We should be consistent. I still think it makes no sense to absorb included unincorporated areas into cities, but not minimal pockets trapped between two cities.

I don't have a problem if we want to make all the incorporated munis stand out even when surrounded. I don't think it will make a difference in the end, but that's just my opinion. I would note that towns are recognized as incorporated units. There are four in the county - Beaux Arts Village, Hunts Point, Skykomish, Yarrow Point. I would think that you want to treat these towns the same as cities.

I think that we need a clear statement of principles, that individual States can adapt to policy appropriate to their circumstances.

At best we are doing is experimenting with policies that Washington might adopt.

[muon2]

Torie, what are your criteria for where you did split swaths of unincorporated area into separate subunits? We should be consistent. I still think it makes no sense to absorb included unincorporated areas into cities, but not minimal pockets trapped between two cities.

I don't have a problem if we want to make all the incorporated munis stand out even when surrounded. I don't think it will make a difference in the end, but that's just my opinion. I would note that towns are recognized as incorporated units. There are four in the county - Beaux Arts Village, Hunts Point, Skykomish, Yarrow Point. I would think that you want to treat these towns the same as cities.

I think that we need a clear statement of principles, that individual States can adapt to policy appropriate to their circumstances.

At best we are doing is experimenting with policies that Washington might adopt.

Here is a statement of policy on county subunits.

Counties in each state should be divided into subunits. County subunits should cover the entire county, though counties with less than 10% of the quota may be covered by a single subunit. (The rationale is that such counties cannot be macrochopped.)

County subunits should be based on political subdivisions recognized by the Census. These may include entities like cities, towns, townships, reservations, and school districts. CCDs defined by the census may be used when there are insufficient political entities to cover a county. When possible all counties in a state should use the same method to determine county subunits.

County subunits may be based on more than one type of political subdivision. For example a county may be divided into cities and townships. In the case of overlapping political units, there should be a clear priority as to the assignment of a parcel. In the example the priority may be that a parcel in both a city and township is assigned to a city.

County subunits may have discontiguous parts. In those cases there is no chop counted when the subunit is split such that discontiguous parts are kept whole. Discontiguous parts may contribute to erosity based on the nature of a split.

Here's how King would look using the preceding statement with cities and towns as the primary and school districts as the secondary basis for subunits. There are 55 subunits in all: 35 cities, 4 towns, and 16 school districts, many of which have multiple fragments. VTDs (precincts) are used to approximate the actual school boundaries.

[Torie]

I don't think I disagree with anything stated above. In part, that is because it is generalized. The devil is in the details. I was asking for where we disagree on the details. I laid out my point of view on these matters. Of course skew does not rule, nor does anything else. Everything is a balancing test. I came up with the one bite rule working with Phoenix. That is consistent with good maps (given the erosity constraint). It is probably what a judge would do. I would certainly do it as a judge. And I would not like a population accident to foreclose what should be done. I see I think on your map those little white bits there that were on my map, now colored in. Does that mean they can go in either adjacent CD? Is that the Stark County issue, where you have township subunits divided by a city, and I suggested a preference rule?  If so, how do our maps differ, other than that you appropriately added the towns?

As I said, what I am looking for now is a specific list of disagreements on the details. It seems when it comes to what the subunits are (as opposed for the units as to how to manipulate them into CD's), at least in King County, that maybe we don't have any disagreements, anymore. You take territory that is not in a city or town subunit, and put in another kind of subunit that is workable. School districts for such unassigned territory seems to be workable in King. School districts do not erase the lines of other subunits, even if they overlap them. So they are fragments of school districts in essence, in many cases at least.

I don't want to agree to anything anymore, until I fully understand it, and its implications. I don't want the estoppel thing to come up, ever again, if possible. I have been beaten up enough on that one already.

[jimrtex]

This is my proposed subunit map for King County.



It was generated directly from block-level census data, which includes. among other data, for each census block: (1) census place (city or CDP); (2) school district; (3) population; (4) land area; and (5) water area.

It was used in conjunction with place data (for King County); and school district (for Washington).

Using Excel, a count of census blocks for each school district was obtained. This isolated the list of school districts in King County, either wholly or part. We treat a city or school district that spans the border as being separate entities.

Next using a two dimensional array of place X school district, the population of the intersection of place and school district was calculated.

For each incorporated city, its largest school district was compared to see if it exceeded 80% of the total population of the city. If it did, then the blocks in the city were reassigned to the predominate school district. (the original school district is retained. A new column was calculated with the assignment to the predominate school district, now a proto-subunit).

For the other three cities, which are divided among districts, (Black Diamond, Sammamish, and Newcastle), blocks were assigned to city-specific subunits. These subunit/cities are shown in red.

Finally, blocks that satisfied all of these conditions: (1) no population; (2) no land area; and more than a km² of water area were assigned to a special subunit. This did not work particularly well. It picked up inland waters and missed areas of Puget Sound. There are feature files that associate specific blocks with water features, which could be used for Puget Sound and other external waters.

The block shapefiles were loaded into QGIS, and joined with a .csv file that contained the Block GeoID-subunit pairs. A new layer was created by dissolving the boundary between blocks in the same subunit. That is what is shown here.

The dissolution was not particularly fast (hours rather than minutes or seconds), but King County has 35,838 blocks.

[muon2]

I don't think I disagree with anything stated above. In part, that is because it is generalized. The devil is in the details. I was asking for where we disagree on the details. I laid out my point of view on these matters. Of course skew does not rule, nor does anything else. Everything is a balancing test. I came up with the one bite rule working with Phoenix. That is consistent with good maps (given the erosity constraint). It is probably what a judge would do. I would certainly do it as a judge. And I would not like a population accident to foreclose what should be done. I see I think on your map those little white bits there that were on my map, now colored in. Does that mean they can go in either adjacent CD? Is that the Stark County issue, where you have township subunits divided by a city, and I suggested a preference rule?  If so, how do our maps differ, other than that you appropriately added the towns?

As I said, what I am looking for now is a specific list of disagreements on the details. It seems when it comes to what the subunits are (as opposed for the units as to how to manipulate them into CD's), at least in King County, that maybe we don't have any disagreements, anymore. You take territory that is not in a city or town subunit, and put in another kind of subunit that is workable. School districts for such unassigned territory seems to be workable in King. School districts do not erase the lines of other subunits, even if they overlap them. So they are fragments of school districts in essence, in many cases at least.

I don't want to agree to anything anymore, until I fully understand it, and its implications. I don't want the estoppel thing to come up, ever again, if possible. I have been beaten up enough on that one already.

One detailed difference is with areas like the one between Bothell and Kirkland. I have it split between two school districts. The few precincts just south of Bothell are like the SE corner of Plain in Stark. They are adjacent to a larger unincorporated township, but they are kept separate as a fragment of Plain. I do the same in King. There a number of similar places where you have merged small unincorporated areas that are in separate school districts.

A second potential difference is how those fragments are handled. Yes, a whole fragment can be shifted to a different district with no chop penalty - that's the Stark equivalence. However, it's still a chop and that means the shifted fragment could contribute to erosity, just like a chop anywhere else. I say could, because it could work either way or have no effect, again that's just like what happens with how we've applied erosity to chops in other states. To make it clear I show all fragments in the same school district with the same color.

I think my resistance to the one bite rule stems from how well our maps have performed without such a rule. Your MI offering is an excellent example that worked without the one-bite. I am resistant to disrupting that kind of success. I'd like to see that a particular goal is impossible without one-bite.

I'm also resistant to an endless preference list that isn't part of the score. I think one of the successes of the UCC model is that we made into a scoring modifier, not a mere preference. There may well be other items that should function like the UCCs and that means working out a scoring rubric for them. My example along this line is the MCC to handle the rural minority counties of the South. We should look at each preference and see how to create a balanced score for it.

[muon2]

This is my proposed subunit map for King County.



It was generated directly from block-level census data, which includes. among other data, for each census block: (1) census place (city or CDP); (2) school district; (3) population; (4) land area; and (5) water area.

It was used in conjunction with place data (for King County); and school district (for Washington).

Using Excel, a count of census blocks for each school district was obtained. This isolated the list of school districts in King County, either wholly or part. We treat a city or school district that spans the border as being separate entities.

Next using a two dimensional array of place X school district, the population of the intersection of place and school district was calculated.

For each incorporated city, its largest school district was compared to see if it exceeded 80% of the total population of the city. If it did, then the blocks in the city were reassigned to the predominate school district. (the original school district is retained. A new column was calculated with the assignment to the predominate school district, now a proto-subunit).

For the other three cities, which are divided among districts, (Black Diamond, Sammamish, and Newcastle), blocks were assigned to city-specific subunits. These subunit/cities are shown in red.

Finally, blocks that satisfied all of these conditions: (1) no population; (2) no land area; and more than a km² of water area were assigned to a special subunit. This did not work particularly well. It picked up inland waters and missed areas of Puget Sound. There are feature files that associate specific blocks with water features, which could be used for Puget Sound and other external waters.

The block shapefiles were loaded into QGIS, and joined with a .csv file that contained the Block GeoID-subunit pairs. A new layer was created by dissolving the boundary between blocks in the same subunit. That is what is shown here.

The dissolution was not particularly fast (hours rather than minutes or seconds), but King County has 35,838 blocks.

I like the map, and it seems to also match my principles with a different prioritization. My concern returns to the nature of incorporation in WA.

The city of Lake Forest Park was incorporated specifically to have an identity separate from the larger Shoreline school district. That's why I like the OH model better here, communities that incorporate get a higher level of recognition as subunits. I think my map creates that same type of recognition for incorporated communities.

[jimrtex]

I like the map, and it seems to also match my principles with a different prioritization. My concern returns to the nature of incorporation in WA.

The city of Lake Forest Park was incorporated specifically to have an identity separate from the larger Shoreline school district. That's why I like the OH model better here, communities that incorporate get a higher level of recognition as subunits. I think my map creates that same type of recognition for incorporated communities.

Or was it to keep out of Seattle?

Before WWII, the northern limits of Seattle were 85th and 66th, with a jog south a bit west of 15th Avenue. The area to the north was semi-rural, with folks keeping chickens, etc. During WWII the area developed as workers came to work at Boeing and other wartime industries, and areas were annexed in ordet to get city street and water. Annexation was done on a precinct by precinct basis, mostly between 1941 and 1953. Lake Forest had been developed much earlier, and had southward access via Lake Washington. With incorporation in 1961, it might have been out of concern that they would be swallowed by the big city.

But there must have either been a change in city policy or state annexation law, since Shoreline did not incorporate until 1995.

I've been doing some looking around on the King County web site, and King County (and perhaps Washington state) have some pretty aggressive annexation policies.

There is something called the Washington State Boundary Review Board for King County. This suggest that all counties, or at least major counties have one, which reviews boundaries.

There is also something called an Urban Growth Area which limits urban growth. Within this boundary, in King County, there are "Potential Annexation Areas" PAA, which are expected to be annexed to the city - I think it would be really hard for a city to go outside the UGA or their PAA. In King County the PAA cover most of the unincorporated areas around cities, and many have been annexed. Kirkland annexed a really big chunk north so it now abuts Bothell, etc., increasing the population from 49,000 to 83,000 (A curiosity was that the vote was 59.94% in favor. A 60% vote is required for the new area to assume a share of the existing city indebtedness. But the city can go ahead and approve the annexation, with the annexed area only acquiring future debt. Kirkland went ahead and annexed the area. If the debt was for localized infrastructure, this is probably a fair deal. And even if for things of more general use, such as a convention center, the existing city would have considered the tax burden without the annexed area).

This could let the UGA boundary be used as part of a subunit boundary, with the cities and their PAA forming subunits. There are some small gap areas, that might be assigned. There are recognized drainage areas, which might be better for the eastern part of the county than school districts, though I suspect the school districts already correspond to these, at least roughly. Unless there were manned ranger stations in April 2010, I suspect the areas are unpopulated.

The difference between a 1st Class City, 2nd Class City, and Towns are their population when they were formed. The threshold for creation of a Town was 300, but now an incorporation requires 1500 persons, so the Towns are stuck.

There are also Code Cities, that require 1500 persons. This is actually a form of home rule, rather than as I might have expected, governed by state law. The 1st Class cities are what you would expect, with Aberdeen being a bit of outsider. The 2nd Class cities seem to be oddballs, and there aren't very many. So towns are stuck, unless they grow, and the 2nd Class cities might not see a reason to switch to home rule.

There is a reservation in King County, part is in southeastern Auburn (three point-connection sections) and the rest along the county boundary further southeast. We could either ignore it, or include all of it as a neighborhood of Auburn.

Incidentally, Snoqualmie Pass is closed for avalanche control. I hope Torie got his map drawn before then. Do you think we should tell him about the secret special connection rule

[Torie]

The pass over the mountains for LA County to Kern County gets closed sometimes too.

Sorry, Jimrtex, I don't like your map. It kills off entities wholesale. It makes the one bite rule all the more important, as it forecloses options like a good lawn mower cuts grass. Good policy is more important to me than implementing the perfect theory.

[muon2]

I saw the UGAs and PAAs on the King website. I prefer the subunit principle that requires county subunits use boundaries that are recognized by the Census. It's easier to generalize to other counties and states, and the source of the definition is clear.

[jimrtex]

I saw the UGAs and PAAs on the King website. I prefer the subunit principle that requires county subunits use boundaries that are recognized by the Census. It's easier to generalize to other counties and states, and the source of the definition is clear.

The census maps are out of date. I think the aggressive annexation policy started in 2009.

I would expect that the units would be defined around 2018. I think the census geographic data is released in December of 2020, so that the redistricting, etc. can be programmed in anticipation of the PL 94-171 release in the spring. Incidentally, cities in Washington are required to redistrict city council districts within NN(60?) days of receipt of the data from the Washington Redistricting Commission. It appears that they just do prep work, rather than actually get involved.

AFIAC, so long as the unit boundaries conform to census blocks, they are fine.

I would think that a state would be more likely to adopt your process if they have a role in defining its use.

[jimrtex]

The pass over the mountains for LA County to Kern County gets closed sometimes too.

Sorry, Jimrtex, I don't like your map. It kills off entities wholesale. It makes the one bite rule all the more important, as it forecloses options like a good lawn mower cuts grass. Good policy is more important to me than implementing the perfect theory.

"good policy" is a slogan. So is "perfect theory"

I don't know what the one bite rule is, and why it is more important, or forecloses options.

[Torie]

I don't think I disagree with anything stated above. In part, that is because it is generalized. The devil is in the details. I was asking for where we disagree on the details. I laid out my point of view on these matters. Of course skew does not rule, nor does anything else. Everything is a balancing test. I came up with the one bite rule working with Phoenix. That is consistent with good maps (given the erosity constraint). It is probably what a judge would do. I would certainly do it as a judge. And I would not like a population accident to foreclose what should be done. I see I think on your map those little white bits there that were on my map, now colored in. Does that mean they can go in either adjacent CD? Is that the Stark County issue, where you have township subunits divided by a city, and I suggested a preference rule?  If so, how do our maps differ, other than that you appropriately added the towns?

As I said, what I am looking for now is a specific list of disagreements on the details. It seems when it comes to what the subunits are (as opposed for the units as to how to manipulate them into CD's), at least in King County, that maybe we don't have any disagreements, anymore. You take territory that is not in a city or town subunit, and put in another kind of subunit that is workable. School districts for such unassigned territory seems to be workable in King. School districts do not erase the lines of other subunits, even if they overlap them. So they are fragments of school districts in essence, in many cases at least.

I don't want to agree to anything anymore, until I fully understand it, and its implications. I don't want the estoppel thing to come up, ever again, if possible. I have been beaten up enough on that one already.

One detailed difference is with areas like the one between Bothell and Kirkland. I have it split between two school districts. The few precincts just south of Bothell are like the SE corner of Plain in Stark. They are adjacent to a larger unincorporated township, but they are kept separate as a fragment of Plain. I do the same in King. There a number of similar places where you have merged small unincorporated areas that are in separate school districts.

That's fine. I didn't intend to ignore school district lines outside city or town entities. Any other differences beyond this concept? I see that you kept separate on your map bits of land surrounded by a city that is not itself a city or town, such is in Bellevue and Kent? Why did you do that, rather than just merge it?

A second potential difference is how those fragments are handled. Yes, a whole fragment can be shifted to a different district with no chop penalty - that's the Stark equivalence. However, it's still a chop and that means the shifted fragment could contribute to erosity, just like a chop anywhere else. I say could, because it could work either way or have no effect, again that's just like what happens with how we've applied erosity to chops in other states. To make it clear I show all fragments in the same school district with the same color.

Typically it would not matter with a CD border fragment right, unless doing it the other way, avoided any pavement cut right? I don't think I have a problem with that, although I did mention a preference regime. Yes, I know, you don't like preferences. More on that below.

I think my resistance to the one bite rule stems from how well our maps have performed without such a rule. Your MI offering is an excellent example that worked without the one-bite. I am resistant to disrupting that kind of success. I'd like to see that a particular goal is impossible without one-bite.

Yes, one bite happened to not be necessary, but then there were not subunit chops anywhere, and Detroit did not matter. The one bite rule will rarely be necessary to avoid an unfortunate skew result. It would happen in Phoenix if we had a population accident as I demonstrated. So I know it can happen, when it should not. The one bite issue really potentially matters in subunits for large townships and cities. For artificial subunits outside such large subunits, it probably will never matter. If might make for an uglier map, but it is unlikely to have much of a partisan difference. And with enough subunits, such as we now have in King, it is unlikely to result in an ugly map to boot. So I am focused I think about subunits within large townships and cites. That is where I think leeway is needed provided that the map does not get erose.

I'm also resistant to an endless preference list that isn't part of the score. I think one of the successes of the UCC model is that we made into a scoring modifier, not a mere preference. There may well be other items that should function like the UCCs and that means working out a scoring rubric for them. My example along this line is the MCC to handle the rural minority counties of the South. We should look at each preference and see how to create a balanced score for it.

Yes, the preference list does seem endless, doesn't it. It may grow yet longer!  The thing is, is it is a good tool for getting the balancing test right. I think it is right for bridge chops as defined by me, and certainly for Indian reservations (although reservations have less national importance). If reservations are treated like counties, than one gets no credit for keeping a county whole. In fact one is punished. Not good. And surely you don't want to treat the same a map that chops both Apache County and the Navajo Indian Reservation as opposed to a map that chops but one of them do you? And wouldn't a chop that divides an Indian Reservation, but unites a county, but better than another county chop elsewhere? If you have another way to get the balancing test right, not using the preference mechanic, it certainly should be considered. But it does need to get to the same place in my view. The fragment preference is more minor. To me it seems like good policy to keep a subunit together that is divided all things being equal, but it's not really that important. I think it is just good policy, and I think a judge would agree. Judges would like the preference concept I think. That is something they would understand.

The thing is with all of this, is that the rules should facilitate what a fair minded person would do when drawing maps in good faith, and not frustrate it. Another example is cities divided by county lines. The first thing I would do, all things being equal, when chopping into a county, is to unite a divided municipality. Wouldn't you? That is just common sense to me.

So I hope you will be open minded on this sort of stuff, even at the cost of elegance. I am trying to be helpful, rather than obstructive. I am trying to keep this metric system from getting into trouble, and having a situation where a map drawer, says, well this rule is really silly, and forces one to do that one with common sense would not do, or is just bad policy.

Anyway, subject to the above about those surrounded non town or city fragments surrounded by cities (this is an instance, where the guy who does not like lines erased, thinks that they really should be erased), I think I sign off on your map. Nice job. Thanks for your hard work on this. I appreciate it.

[muon2]

I saw the UGAs and PAAs on the King website. I prefer the subunit principle that requires county subunits use boundaries that are recognized by the Census. It's easier to generalize to other counties and states, and the source of the definition is clear.

The census maps are out of date. I think the aggressive annexation policy started in 2009.

I would expect that the units would be defined around 2018. I think the census geographic data is released in December of 2020, so that the redistricting, etc. can be programmed in anticipation of the PL 94-171 release in the spring. Incidentally, cities in Washington are required to redistrict city council districts within NN(60?) days of receipt of the data from the Washington Redistricting Commission. It appears that they just do prep work, rather than actually get involved.

AFIAC, so long as the unit boundaries conform to census blocks, they are fine.

I would think that a state would be more likely to adopt your process if they have a role in defining its use.

I'm basing these maps on 2010 as a test. There's no question the subunits would be different going into 2020 because of annexation. OH has a similar effect as incorporations and annexations cut into townships, leading to different subunits n 2020 than in 2010.

The preferred role for the state is to pick a priority among subunit choices that would apply to all counties. The recommended subunit choices would be those that would be coded for blocks in the decennial Census. If WA creates county subdivisions for use in the 2020 census, then those would naturally be the best choice.

[muon2]

One detailed difference is with areas like the one between Bothell and Kirkland. I have it split between two school districts. The few precincts just south of Bothell are like the SE corner of Plain in Stark. They are adjacent to a larger unincorporated township, but they are kept separate as a fragment of Plain. I do the same in King. There a number of similar places where you have merged small unincorporated areas that are in separate school districts.

That's fine. I didn't intend to ignore school district lines outside city or town entities. Any other differences beyond this concept? I see that you kept separate on your map bits of land surrounded by a city that is not itself a city or town, such is in Bellevue and Kent? Why did you do that, rather than just merge it?

A second potential difference is how those fragments are handled. Yes, a whole fragment can be shifted to a different district with no chop penalty - that's the Stark equivalence. However, it's still a chop and that means the shifted fragment could contribute to erosity, just like a chop anywhere else. I say could, because it could work either way or have no effect, again that's just like what happens with how we've applied erosity to chops in other states. To make it clear I show all fragments in the same school district with the same color.

Typically it would not matter with a CD border fragment right, unless doing it the other way, avoided any pavement cut right? I don't think I have a problem with that, although I did mention a preference regime. Yes, I know, you don't like preferences. More on that below.

Anyway, subject to the above about those surrounded non town or city fragments surrounded by cities (this is an instance, where the guy who does not like lines erased, thinks that they really should be erased), I think I sign off on your map. Nice job. Thanks for your hard work on this. I appreciate it.

As you have observed I've tried to model WA subunits (and hopefully other troublesome states) on work we've done elsewhere. OH seems to be a model that could be adapted to fit. In OH we left the surrounded pockets with the township, so consistent with that model I left the inclusions with the other unincorporated parts of the underlying school district. There's no penalty for grouping them with the surrounding city, but it makes the subunit creation rule much clearer.

Here's my version of Pierce using the same methodology I finalized for King. There are 39 subunits: 18 cities, 5 incorporated towns, and 16 unincorporated school districts.

[muon2]

I think my resistance to the one bite rule stems from how well our maps have performed without such a rule. Your MI offering is an excellent example that worked without the one-bite. I am resistant to disrupting that kind of success. I'd like to see that a particular goal is impossible without one-bite.

Yes, one bite happened to not be necessary, but then there were not subunit chops anywhere, and Detroit did not matter. The one bite rule will rarely be necessary to avoid an unfortunate skew result. It would happen in Phoenix if we had a population accident as I demonstrated. So I know it can happen, when it should not. The one bite issue really potentially matters in subunits for large townships and cities. For artificial subunits outside such large subunits, it probably will never matter. If might make for an uglier map, but it is unlikely to have much of a partisan difference. And with enough subunits, such as we now have in King, it is unlikely to result in an ugly map to boot. So I am focused I think about subunits within large townships and cites. That is where I think leeway is needed provided that the map does not get erose.

I'm also resistant to an endless preference list that isn't part of the score. I think one of the successes of the UCC model is that we made into a scoring modifier, not a mere preference. There may well be other items that should function like the UCCs and that means working out a scoring rubric for them. My example along this line is the MCC to handle the rural minority counties of the South. We should look at each preference and see how to create a balanced score for it.

Yes, the preference list does seem endless, doesn't it. It may grow yet longer!  The thing is, is it is a good tool for getting the balancing test right. I think it is right for bridge chops as defined by me, and certainly for Indian reservations (although reservations have less national importance). If reservations are treated like counties, than one gets no credit for keeping a county whole. In fact one is punished. Not good. And surely you don't want to treat the same a map that chops both Apache County and the Navajo Indian Reservation as opposed to a map that chops but one of them do you? And wouldn't a chop that divides an Indian Reservation, but unites a county, but better than another county chop elsewhere? If you have another way to get the balancing test right, not using the preference mechanic, it certainly should be considered. But it does need to get to the same place in my view. The fragment preference is more minor. To me it seems like good policy to keep a subunit together that is divided all things being equal, but it's not really that important. I think it is just good policy, and I think a judge would agree. Judges would like the preference concept I think. That is something they would understand.

The thing is with all of this, is that the rules should facilitate what a fair minded person would do when drawing maps in good faith, and not frustrate it. Another example is cities divided by county lines. The first thing I would do, all things being equal, when chopping into a county, is to unite a divided municipality. Wouldn't you? That is just common sense to me.

So I hope you will be open minded on this sort of stuff, even at the cost of elegance. I am trying to be helpful, rather than obstructive. I am trying to keep this metric system from getting into trouble, and having a situation where a map drawer, says, well this rule is really silly, and forces one to do that one with common sense would not do, or is just bad policy.

The idea of the UCC began with a nasty map I drew that chopped up Lansing. Our attempt to correct for it started as a mandate, became a preference, but then emerged as a scoring adjustment. Eventually we tried three different scoring adjustments and found two that worked, but the third didn't (one county UCCs) so we dropped it entirely.  One of the ones that did survive is not one I was particularly enamored of (pack rule), but it is still with us.

So, I'm willing to entertain a look at any of these preferences. I hope you're prepared to view them as scoring modifiers as well. I think that is in the spirit of a Pareto choice using numeric variables and recognizing that it actually worked last year with the UCCs.

[Torie]

"So, I'm willing to entertain a look at any of these preferences. I hope you're prepared to view them as scoring modifiers as well. I think that is in the spirit of a Pareto choice using numeric variables and recognizing that it actually worked last year with the UCCs."

Whatever works, honey. I'm practical. If I get what I want as to substance, I don't mind the details of the sartorial veneer, to satisfy the masses, or the elegance freaks, or anybody else. I'm a happy camper.

Thanks for your patience with me. I know that I am annoying sometimes.

[muon2]

Here's Snohomish. Along with King and Pierce, these are the counties that must be macrochopped. At this point I can see how my erose Dem-pack district in King compares with my more traditional offering.

[jimrtex]

This is a second attempt.



I included CDP's, and lowered the threshold for having a dominant school district to 2/3 (that is, if the largest school district in a place has more than twice as many students, as any other school districts combined, the entire place goes with the dominant school district.

[Torie]

Not that is matters, but how did you decide to put the Lake Washington water between Mercer Island and Renton into Renton? Who would these new subunits have some systematic impact on erosity of a Dem pack district? Would not it just be an accident of the array of the lines as they happen to lie in King? Of course, a Dem pack CD cannot happen in this instance with my proposed bridge chop definition and rule, but I digress.  And that will tend to be a systematic impact because it will make it more difficult to unite rural areas in two adjacent counties, if both are not appended to a third county.

Anyway, here is your Dem pack CD. The subunits created in King don't really have an impact. But they do in Snohomish, were a school district subunit needs to be chopped to keep road connections. If the one bite rule applied outside of subunits within cities and townships, then it would work just fine. So the grand adventure could not be done at all with my bridge chop regime, but it can without it, at least with the one bite rule being applied outside the interior of cities and townships for artificial subunits. The ying and the yang. Of course, that does not mean that it might not all work in 2022. These things as I keep saying tend to be population accidents. The one bite rule and my bridge chop rule tend to mitigate population accidents.

[muon2]

I want to follow up on what I think is a way to do this consistent with some of our past practice.

Interesting questions. I was focused more about chops that are created by these "artificial" subunits, which are less salable out there. That is a very substantial concern of mine. So there is the issue of whether to create distinctions between real towns and cities, and these constructs, particularly cities I guess. I am not sure what to do about that. It is more an empirical issue. In all events, a 0.5% limitation is way too small. That is only 3.500 people or so and trivial. That is not going to do much good at all. I would think a limitation of 5%, or 35,000 people, is more appropriate. Tentatively, I would tend to think that the one bite rule will not apply to cities, but would to everything else, with the 5% limitation. That way, we do not get disparate results between those states that have little towns here, there and everywhere (NY has them taking in all real estate, as does Michigan), as opposed to states that do not.

At 5% it becomes a macrochop of the subunit, so you are suggesting (I think) that any simple chop of an unincorporated subunit, or neighborhood of a macrochopped city is subject to the one bite rule. Presumably that means townships in the Midwest, too. If so, there would seem to be no incentive to keep them intact.

As I noted above 5% is a simple chop and does not create a macrochop. We have the practice that with a simple chop we don't look at the subunits. However we don't want wholesale chopping of subunits just because there isn't a macrochop. How about this formulation:

A simple chop may be comprised of a number of subunits, no more than one of which may be chopped. A simple chop counts as one chop in scoring whether or not a subunit is chopped. Each disconnected fragment of a simple chop counts as a single unit for determining erosity.

A macrochop requires that each subunit of the macrochopped unit be treated as a unit both for assessing chops and for determining erosity. That is in a macrochop any chop of a subunit increases the chop score.

A chop of a subunit that only separates disconnected parts of the subunit does not increase the chop score. This applies in units with either a simple chop or a macrochop.

This gives one-bite relief for chops that stay below 5%, but not in units that are macrochopped. It gives multi-bite relief in macrochops for disconnected fragments of a subunit.

[Torie]

I'm prepared to not give a preference to joining fragments, as I mused about. It is not that important. It is good as you have now formulated to have something other than a flat ban on chopping subunits for non macro-chops. That was never going to work. I am prepared to treat these artificial subunits outside a city or large township as the same as other subunits, even though subject to having them to limit erosity, that is a good place, with good maps, to get skew down, that would not be considered gerrymandering. The theory here is that puts all states on a level playing field, since states like Michigan have all of their real estate accounted for by non artificial subunits.

What I am not prepared to do is give up my one bite rule without a population limitation for chops of subunits in cities and and townships.  I have explained why. That still keeps all states on a level playing field. It will allow some modest and benign and non erose "gerrymandering" to keep skew down. It will allow the kind of "gerrymandering" a judge or fair minded person would do. Otherwise, we are subject to the population accident regime. This population accident regime has become more acute precisely because population variances are allowed between CD's, which typically have not been allowed, except to keep counties whole in Iowa and West Virginia. I want to allow more flexibility within big cities and townships subject to keeping erosity down. One needs subunits with cities and townships to keep erosity down in an objective manner. But they should not give rise to the tyranny of the population accident within, screwing skew.

So there we are. Hopefully, you will think seriously about the points that I am making. I know it degrades elegance, but in this case the benefit is worth it. When it comes to subunits in general, the population accident issue  is the most controversial part of the whole scheme, given the allowance for CD population variances. It is new and novel, and accidental, the roll of the dice. But at least with recognized subunits, it has a clear public policy benefit of keeping as much whole as can be kept whole. No such benefit exists for these planning districts or whatever. There the purpose is to constrain erosity, and nothing more other other than having something totally objective to use for the roll of the dice. That is the place to switch out what is objective to focus on skew, polarization, etc.

It might affect maybe 5 seats across the nation as a guess perhaps, if that many.  But in states where it does, we have a real problem.

This and bridge chops I think are our most important points of disagreement. Heck, with your definition of bridge chops, one could have a CD that runs across 6 counties taking in fragments of each, each of which has a nested CD for the balance of the county. Talk about gerrymanders. To  me, everything that is other than a CD comprised of of more than two county fragments that are not adjacent to a county wholly within the CD, is a bridge chop, which should be disfavored, in favor of another CD taking in the fragment in the next county. I don't think I am going to give up on that one either, absent some argument I have not yet heard that is persuasive, probably attended by an example.

[muon2]

Here's an illustration of the suggested rule in my previous post. Kitsap has 4 cities and 6 school districts, one of which is the same as a city (Bainbridge Island) and one is a fragment from a neighboring county North Mason. The city of Bremerton divides the Bremerton SD into a lot of fragments.

Edit: there's a 4 person disconnected part of Bremerton adjacent to Port Orchard not shown on the map below. The magenta outline north of the SW part of Port Orchard indicates the location.



Populations by subunit:
Bainbridge Island (dark blue): 23,025
Bremerton city (red): 37,546
Port Orchard city (green): 11,144
Poulsby city (dark slate): 9,200
Bremerton SD (pink): 10,420
North Kitsap SD (light blue): 37,738
Central Kitsap SD (medium blue): 64,844
South Kitsap SD (light green): 56,861
North Mason SD (orange): 345

Note that Bainbridge Island is only connected to North Kitsap and North Mason is only connected to Central Kitsap. Only one fragment of Bremerton SD (southernmost) is connected to the main part of South Kitsap, and the SD fragments south and west of Kitsap lake are only connected to Bremerton city. Bremerton is not connected to Port Orchard. There are mountains and a lot of water without bridges or ferries here.

Now consider the map for the Puget sound area I posted much earlier in this thread. Assume that it corrects the error that left out the sparsely populated part of SW Bremerton from CD-2 (green). It has a macrochop of Kitsap putting about 160K in CD2 (green) and 91K in CD6 (slate). To do so it chops the Central Kitsap SD for a total of two chops, one for the county and one for the subunit. Other arrangements lead instead to a chop of Bremerton city.



Here's a map that shifts Grays Harbor and Mason to CD2 and reduces the chop into Kitsap to 26K. That's a simple chop, so the fact that it chops North Kitsap SD doesn't count against it by my suggested version of one-bite. That reduces the Kitsap chop to just 1.



However, because of connections, CD9 slid up into Kitsap and cost a UCC pack. Thus the net chop score including UCC is a wash between the two plans. That seems like a reasonable balance, leaving it to erosity to discriminate between the two plans.

I think it is good policy to discourage large chops when small chops will do. Macrochops define the line between large and small chops. If the one bite rule applies to macrochops as well then there is no incentive not to macrochop Kitsap. I don't like that result. Maybe the issue only applies to subunit chops in city subunits (basically a subunit of a subunit) as per the Phoenix example; I haven't seen as a good an illustration elsewhere.

The issue returns to the subject of population accidents. But this is exactly what we addressed with train's concern in MI last year. If a chop is used to overcome a population accident, and it reduces inequality then it rewards the chopper. The one bite in macrochops could do the same thing. There are judges who think lower inequality is important; in the 7th circuit when faced with a choice between VRA compliant maps in the 90's  they explicitly picked the one with the lower inequality. I think this should be given consideration.

[jimrtex]

If the folks in Washington were to ask whether this methodology could also be used for legislative districts, what would you tell them? What if any adaptations would be needed?

Washington has 49 legislative districts, which elect one senator and two representatives by position. The constitution requires nesting of representative districts within senate districts, so formally, senate and representative districts are coterminous.

It is constitutional to divide a senate district into two distinct representative districts. Such division need not be done on a statewide basis.

So consider several possibilities:

(1) Draw 49 legislative districts as now.
(2) Draw 49 senate districts, then divide each into two representative districts.
(2a) Make an object decision on whether to actually split a senate district into the representative districts.
(3) Draw 98 representative districts, then pair into senate districts.
(3a) Make an objective decision on whether to dissolve the pair of representative districts into a single district.

[Torie]

Well, you tossed a lot on the table there.

1. Before, you had a flat ban on chops of subunits not involving a macro-chop, and otherwise such ordinary chops had no penalty other than an erosity issue potentially. Now the flat ban is gone (good), and we have no incentive to avoid a chop, other than erosity considerations. Does that make any sense? I think we are back to a preference issue (outside of subunits of subunits, where I do want an unbridled one bite rule).

2. Your problem here is that the macro-chop penalty for the chop of a subunit was offset by a pack penalty (the latter of which you don't like much anyway). So to weaken the pack penalty, you want an additional incentive to not macro-chop. Absent the pack penalty, this issue you have illustrated would not be in play. So you grab onto the one bite rule, in a context about which I am not particularly concerned, to effect your preferences, as opposed to where I am concerned. Very clever! I guess I would need to see how much you have let the genie out of the bottle with your weakening of the pack penalty, and for that matter, the cover penalty. I do agree that outside of a chop of a subunit of a subunit, that a macro-chop is worse than an ordinary chop in theory. It certainly should be a preference item. Whether it should go beyond that, and weaken the pack and cover penalty regime, is another matter.

3.Did the 7th circuit case involve CD's? Most states require absolute equality of population with CD's. If equality suddenly became important, we would suddenly be getting more chops over a few people. Not good.

Have I misunderstood anything here, or mischaracterized? It's tough for me to get a handle on all of this with so many wheels moving at once, particularly this early in the morning.