The Trond can't help it...

[WMS]

New Mexico
Bernalillo can't be paired with either Valencia or Sandoval (nor Santa Fe either) which means it has to extend into quite vast areas. The number of legal combinations within these constraints however is legion - districts as diverse as Bernalillo - Cibola - Catron - Sierra or Bernalillo - Torrance - San Miguel - Dem hold NM1 for ever.
I *think* this map has the lowest pop. variation, although it's right up there in Absurdistan...

1 Bernalillo, Cibola, Torrance, Guadalupe, De Baca
606,104 1.000
2 North of that and as far as Quay and Curry
606,989 1.001
3 remainder
605,953 .999

Yes, the population + county geography combination make splitting counties hard to avoid. Although my old plan did quite well in minimizing that. I only split four counties: Bernalillo because you have to, Sandoval to pick up the northern Urban Area (although if I hadn't hit the population limit I would've then gone south into Valencia to pick up the southern Urban Area), Socorro to nab the Native American Reservation there for CD3, and Colfax to reduce population deviation.

Oh, my version 2 had:
1: 606,359 1.000 Dev. -10
2: 606,421 1.001 Dev. +72
3: 606,266 .999   Dev. -83

Now that is minimal population deviation!

Interesting map there...but it is absurd.

[WMS]

New Mexico
Bernalillo can't be paired with either Valencia or Sandoval (nor Santa Fe either) which means it has to extend into quite vast areas. The number of legal combinations within these constraints however is legion - districts as diverse as Bernalillo - Cibola - Catron - Sierra or Bernalillo - Torrance - San Miguel - Dem hold NM1 for ever.
I *think* this map has the lowest pop. variation, although it's right up there in Absurdistan...

1 Bernalillo, Cibola, Torrance, Guadalupe, De Baca
606,104 1.000
2 North of that and as far as Quay and Curry
606,989 1.001
3 remainder
605,953 .999

Yes, the population + county geography combination make splitting counties hard to avoid. Although my old plan did quite well in minimizing that. I only split four counties: Bernalillo because you have to, Sandoval to pick up the northern Urban Area (although if I hadn't hit the population limit I would've then gone south into Valencia to pick up the southern Urban Area), Socorro to nab the Native American Reservation there for CD3, and Colfax to reduce population deviation.

Oh, my version 2 had:
1: 606,359 1.000 Dev. -10
2: 606,421 1.001 Dev. +72
3: 606,266 .999   Dev. -83

Now that is minimal population deviation!

Interesting map there...but it is absurd.

Why exactly do you have to split Bernalillo? Couldn't you do a district of Bernalillo + remainder of Indian rez.s partly in Bernalillo + Albuquerque suburban areas in Sandoval?

I split Bernalillo in two different ways:
First, I included the To'hajillee and Isleta Indian Rez's in CD3 - to be honest, that's the only type of ethnicity I was considering in my redistricting (I was trying to get as many Indian Rez's as possible in one district without gerrymandering things a ton...all but 2, because Sandia is surrounded by Hispanics and Anglos in my CD1 and Mescalero is too far away, deep in CD2). So that explains that.
Second, I put the parts of Bernalillo County east of the Sandia Mountain Ridgeline in the same district as the neighboring parts of Santa Fe and Torrance Counties, because they have way more in common with them than with the Albuquerque Metro Area. Follow the Interstate - there is a clear Tijeras-Edgewood-Moriarty commonality and the county borders are borders in name only, with the same mostly-rural environment. We call it the East Mountain Area in BernCo, and it is distinctly separate from the other parts of the County (which doesn't stop us employees from biannually attending department meetings in a gorgeous piece of County Property just NW of Tijeras ). So that explains that.
I was following communities of interest and trying to unify as much of the Albuquerque Metro Area as possible, while increasing the chances of both Indians and rural mountaineers to have a voice in their districts.

Not that your idea isn't also interesting, although you would likely have to leave out the communities of Bernalillo, Placitas, Sandia Pueblo, and maybe some other parts to stay under the population restrictions (I shaved off the west, south, and east of BernCo and Rio Rancho still almost made up the entire distance to 'fill' the CD's population totals). Give it a try and come back to me.

[WMS]

New Mexico
Bernalillo can't be paired with either Valencia or Sandoval (nor Santa Fe either) which means it has to extend into quite vast areas. The number of legal combinations within these constraints however is legion - districts as diverse as Bernalillo - Cibola - Catron - Sierra or Bernalillo - Torrance - San Miguel - Dem hold NM1 for ever.
I *think* this map has the lowest pop. variation, although it's right up there in Absurdistan...

1 Bernalillo, Cibola, Torrance, Guadalupe, De Baca
606,104 1.000
2 North of that and as far as Quay and Curry
606,989 1.001
3 remainder
605,953 .999

Yes, the population + county geography combination make splitting counties hard to avoid. Although my old plan did quite well in minimizing that. I only split four counties: Bernalillo because you have to, Sandoval to pick up the northern Urban Area (although if I hadn't hit the population limit I would've then gone south into Valencia to pick up the southern Urban Area), Socorro to nab the Native American Reservation there for CD3, and Colfax to reduce population deviation.

Oh, my version 2 had:
1: 606,359 1.000 Dev. -10
2: 606,421 1.001 Dev. +72
3: 606,266 .999   Dev. -83

Now that is minimal population deviation!

Interesting map there...but it is absurd.

It's interesting to see what happens to Trond's map if you project it to 2010. CD 1 become too large and CD 3 quite a bit to small. To correct it I had to reduce CD 1 to Bernalillo and Cibola only (projected 679.0 K in 2010). CD 2 wraps around Albuquerque and becomes Guadalupe, Los Alamos, McKinley, Mora, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, San Juan, Santa Fe, Taos, Torrance, and Valencia (678.5 K). CD 3 takes in the rest in the south and east (679.5 K).

Hmm...interesting indeed. I suspect my map isn't projectable because I split too much of Bernalillo and Sandoval and your projections are only down to the county level...

[WMS]

Can you dig up the map of your attempt again, Nate?

Let me see. If I can't find it I'll just post it again since I still have it on my Photobucket account.


*edit*

From this thread:






Here's a zoomed in look at NM-1:

[WMS]

I just reread the whole thread again. Thanks!

Yeah, it was a good one. And you're welcome!

[WMS]

New Mexico
Bernalillo can't be paired with either Valencia or Sandoval (nor Santa Fe either) which means it has to extend into quite vast areas. The number of legal combinations within these constraints however is legion - districts as diverse as Bernalillo - Cibola - Catron - Sierra or Bernalillo - Torrance - San Miguel - Dem hold NM1 for ever.
I *think* this map has the lowest pop. variation, although it's right up there in Absurdistan...

1 Bernalillo, Cibola, Torrance, Guadalupe, De Baca
606,104 1.000
2 North of that and as far as Quay and Curry
606,989 1.001
3 remainder
605,953 .999

Yes, the population + county geography combination make splitting counties hard to avoid. Although my old plan did quite well in minimizing that. I only split four counties: Bernalillo because you have to, Sandoval to pick up the northern Urban Area (although if I hadn't hit the population limit I would've then gone south into Valencia to pick up the southern Urban Area), Socorro to nab the Native American Reservation there for CD3, and Colfax to reduce population deviation.

Oh, my version 2 had:
1: 606,359 1.000 Dev. -10
2: 606,421 1.001 Dev. +72
3: 606,266 .999   Dev. -83

Now that is minimal population deviation!

Interesting map there...but it is absurd.

It's interesting to see what happens to Trond's map if you project it to 2010. CD 1 become too large and CD 3 quite a bit to small. To correct it I had to reduce CD 1 to Bernalillo and Cibola only (projected 679.0 K in 2010). CD 2 wraps around Albuquerque and becomes Guadalupe, Los Alamos, McKinley, Mora, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, San Juan, Santa Fe, Taos, Torrance, and Valencia (678.5 K). CD 3 takes in the rest in the south and east (679.5 K).

Hmm...interesting indeed. I suspect my map isn't projectable because I split too much of Bernalillo and Sandoval and your projections are only down to the county level...

I can split to smaller levels when there are census estimates. In the NE and Midwest every state is fully broken down to the town level. Elsewhere only incorporated places are estimated by the census.

Thanks to WMS for sending me his precinct files and with some rounding on my part I can make rough projections for WMS' map.

In 2010 the ideal CD is about 679 K in population.
WMS CD 1: 723 K
WMS CD 2: 638 K
WMS CD 3: 677 K
The Albuquerque district has the growth that need to shift to CD 2to then shift to CD 3. The city of Rio Rancho in CD1 in Sandoval county is seeing a growth rate of almost 5% per year.

Oh, cool. Hmm...let's see...I'd trim off the communities of Placitas, Bernalillo, Algodones (currently split for population reasons in my map) and Sandia Pueblo (W00T! Only one Indian Reservation not in CD3 ) for starters. Then after that it all depends on how partisan I was feeling. Cut off Rio Rancho...or cut off the South Valley? Decisions, decisions.

And for the transfer to CD2...the rest of Colfax County, for starters. Then, perhaps, Torrance County if needed, or maybe Mora County. It would all depend on the numbers.