Naming the districts

[Ethelberth]

Here is Texas:

TX-1 TYLER AND HIGH SABINE VALLEY
TX-2 BEAUMONT AND HOUSTON NORTH
TX-3 GARLAND AND PLANO
TX-4 TEXAS NORTH EAST
TX-5 MESQUITE AND HIGH NECHES VALLEY
TX-6 ARLINGTON AND TRINITY VALLEY
TX-7 HOSTON WEST
TX-8 TEXAS SOUTH EAST
TX-9 HOUSTON SOUTH WEST AND MISSOURI CITY
TX-10 AUSTIN NORTH AND LOW BRAZOS VALLEY
TX-11 HIGH COLORADO VALLEY
TX-12 FORT WORTH WEST
TX-13 HIGH RED RIVER VALLEY
TX-14 GALVESTON AND GULF COAST
TX-15 EDINBURG AND LOWER NUECES VALLEY
TX-16 EL PASO
TX-17 HIGH BRAZOS VALLEY
TX-18 HOUSTON CENTRAL
TX-19 LUBBOCK AND ABILANE
TX-20 SAN ANTONIO CENTRAL
TX-21 AUSTIN NORTH AND GUADALUPE VALLEY
TX-22 SUGARLAND AND PEERLAND
TX-23 SAN ANTONIO OUTER AND RIO GRANDE VALLEY
TX-24 CARROLTON AND GRAND PRAIRIE
TX-25 AUSTIN SOUTH AND LOWER COLORADO VALLEY
TX-26 FORT WORTH CENTRAL AND DENTON
TX-27 CORPUS CHRISTI AND BROWNSVILLE
TX-28 SAN ANTONIO EAST AND LOW RIO GRANDE VALLEY
TX-29 HOUSTON EAST AND BAYTOWN
TX-30 DALLAS CENTRAL
TX-31 STEPHENVILLE AND LEON RIVER VALLEY
TX-32 DALLAS NORTH AND IRVING

[SamInTheSouth]

Good luck naming some of the ridiculously gerrymandered districts.

NJ-01: Camden
NJ-02: Atlantic City and Vineland
NJ-03: Long Beach Island and some random Philly suburbs that don't belong in this district.
NJ-04: Hi, I'm a gerrymandered district.
NJ-05: Piedmont and Bergen North
NJ-06: New Brunswick and Sandy Hook
NJ-07: Hi, I'm an even more gerrymandered district.
NJ-08: Paterson
NJ-09: Bergen South
NJ-10: Newark
NJ-11: Morristown
NJ-12: Trenton, Princeton and a ton of random places that don't belong in this district.
NJ-13: Jersey City


What really bug me about NJ are the horizontal districts that slice across the state without any regard to where people actually live and what areas "belong" together. I've griped about the four really bad ones (NJ-03, NJ-04, NJ-07 and NJ-12) above, although NJ-06 is pretty bad, too. NJ-10 and NJ-13 are a stupid racial gerrymander.

Nothing beats the 12th Congressional District of North Carolina.

[Verily]

Oh, I'm sure there are worse than New Jersey's.

Incidentally, I'm redrawing borders for New Jersey on my own right now, and I created a majority black district and a plurality Hispanic district without the need for ridiculous shapes and districts contiguous only over water.

[The Mikado]

This may be getting onto another topic, but I think that AZ-02 is the ugliest congressional district in the country.  All your gerrymander comments got me thinking.

[CultureKing]

WA-1: Everett/Seattle Leeches
WA-2: Pretty Islands/mountains
WA-3: Home of the crazies on this side of the mountains (J Z Knight/Lewis county)
WA-4: water... need... water...
WA-5: Look! Its SPOKANE!!!! CAPITAL OF THE INLAND EMPIRE!!@!!1!!11!
WA-6: Olympic penninsula gets owned by Tacoma
WA-7: We are Seattle, the largest city in Washington, the state capitol, with a population of 5 trillion... we love ourselves. mmm.... Seattle.
WA-8: Just trying to keep away the liberals before its too late.
WA-9: Boring/See WA-1 except with Tacoma

[muon2]

From four years ago - there are the pieces from this thread including my two cents.

[Wrecking Ball and Chain]

NJ-04 doesn't look that bad. What's so gerrymandered about it?

[Verily]

NJ-04 doesn't look that bad. What's so gerrymandered about it?

There's absolutely nothing in the central part of the district. Nothing. It combines Trenton suburbs with the coast for no reason at all. You could very easily create a district containing Trenton and its suburbs extending down into Burlington County a bit and another containing most of Ocean County (and a third containing Monmouth County and the rest of Ocean County). The districts would be compact and would work well in terms of containing areas that belong together. But, no, they decided to stretch a district all the way across the state, combining areas with nothing in common.

Although, to be fair, New Jersey isn't really gerrymandered (although its map slightly favors the Republicans; under any map with reasonable districts, the delegation would be 8-5 instead of 7-6). It just has ridiculously shaped districts, which in my mind amounts to the same thing. By dividing like-minded communities with similar interests, you dilute the power of localities and localized campaigns in favor of incumbents and parties.

[Gravis Marketing]

Regarding NJ, one has to hope that the loss of a Congressional seat and the need to redraw boundaries to increase population in stagnant districts will mean the end of the Central Jersey mess.

Districts 1 and 2 and everything north and east of the 7th district is basically sound. The 13th district isn't beautiful, but maj-min disticts are what they are.

[Big DaddyTX]

Ohio has already been done, so I picked a fairly easy one:

CT-1: Hartford
CT-2: East Connecticut
CT-3: New Haven
CT-4: Bridgeport & South West Connecticut
CT-5: North West Connecticut

That sounds accurate.

I would only change CT-4 to "Gold Coast"

[Joe Republic]

Ohio has already been done, so I picked a fairly easy one:

CT-1: Hartford
CT-2: East Connecticut
CT-3: New Haven
CT-4: Bridgeport & South West Connecticut
CT-5: North West Connecticut

That sounds accurate.

I would only change CT-4 to "Gold Coast"

The Westminster style of naming constituencies doesn't really allow for popular nicknames for areas.

[Gravis Marketing]

You know, I've never been able to remember the order of the Western N.Y. districts. But having compiled this, and being able to visualize the list, I can't forget them. Thanks to whomever suggested this thread, even if no one reads to the bottom of my post it's been good for me.

NY-26: Erie Canal
NY-27: Erie South
NY-28: Monroe Ontario
NY-29: Monroe Nascar

[Big DaddyTX]

Ohio has already been done, so I picked a fairly easy one:

CT-1: Hartford
CT-2: East Connecticut
CT-3: New Haven
CT-4: Bridgeport & South West Connecticut
CT-5: North West Connecticut

That sounds accurate.

I would only change CT-4 to "Gold Coast"

The Westminster style of naming constituencies doesn't really allow for popular nicknames for areas.

Ehh, I suppose your right. Sadly people around here want to refer to this area by that all the time. UGH!

 I'da thought "Stamford" too, but I aint that smart.

[Former Moderate]

Aside from the slug of Woodbridge in NJ-07, it may be ugly looking, but it does do a great job of bundling like-minded voters with common interests and demographics.  It largely just meanders through obnoxiously wealthy exurbs in Hunterdon like my parents' home town, obnoxiously wealthy exurbs (transitioning to suburbs) in Somerset like Bridgewater, and obnoxiously wealthy suburbs (they're too well located to be exurbs) in Union like Westfield.

[memphis]

I tried to do this for TN but I couldn't think of anything for most of the districts. Should I call TN-7 Memphis and Nashville suburbia with rural counties in between to keep it contiguous? TN-4 can be huge swath of empty hills. I guess I'm just not clever enough

[Gravis Marketing]

It largely just meanders through obnoxiously wealthy exurbs in Hunterdon like my parents' home town, obnoxiously wealthy exurbs (transitioning to suburbs) in Somerset like Bridgewater, and obnoxiously wealthy suburbs (they're too well located to be exurbs) in Union like Westfield.

It's funny that you mentioned Bridgewater, where my sister lives, and Westfield, where her husband grew up. While they're pretty nice, I don't think of either one as "obnoxiously wealthy" although Bridgewater has its McMansion areas alongside the older homes. Anything I'd call by that term is in the 11th district, like Harding Twp., Millburn, Chatham, and the places where Steve Forbes lives.

[Jake]

Bridgewater? Median HH income of $88,000? Yeah, that's obnoxiously wealthy.

[Former Moderate]

CA-1: Redwood Empire
CA-2: Shasta Cascade
CA-3: Gold Country
CA-4: High Sierra

California is hard. I'll do some easier state now.

These are not Westminster style names. These are the kind of names the Chamber of Commerce would pick - basically insults to intelligence.

You think America would pick Westminster-style names?

Alaska does for State House districts, well mostly.

So too does Massachusetts for the State Senate.  Sorta.  I'm in the Second Middlesex, one of the few districts with a number in the name.  The Senate President is from "Plymouth and Barnstable,"  the least senior Republican is from "Norfolk, Bristol, and Middlesex," and the Minority Leader is from "Middlesex and Essex."

They get less creative with House names.  I live in the "Thirty-fourth Middlesex."

[jimrtex]

Here is Texas:

TX-1 TYLER AND HIGH SABINE VALLEY

Deep East & East Texas Field

TX-2 BEAUMONT AND HOUSTON NORTH

Harris Northeast, Beaumont, & Port Arthur

Very little of Houston in the district.

TX-3 GARLAND AND PLANO

Plano - Garland

TX-4 TEXAS NORTH EAST

Red River Valley

TX-5 MESQUITE AND HIGH NECHES VALLEY

Dallas East, Trinity & Neches Valleys

Mesquite really isn't dominant even in Dallas County, and the Neches River is along the eastern edge of the district. 

TX-6 ARLINGTON AND TRINITY VALLEY

Arlington & Trinity Valley

TX-7 HOSTON WEST

West Houston

TX-8 TEXAS SOUTH EAST

Montgomery, Orange & Big Thicket

TX-9 HOUSTON SOUTH WEST AND MISSOURI CITY

Southwest Houston

(doesn't include majority of Missouri City)

TX-10 AUSTIN NORTH AND LOW BRAZOS VALLEY

North Austin, Harris Northwest, & Points In Between

TX-11 HIGH COLORADO VALLEY

Permian Basin, Concho Valley & Hill Country

TX-12 FORT WORTH WEST

West Fort Worth

TX-13 HIGH RED RIVER VALLEY

Panhandle & Red River Valley

TX-14 GALVESTON AND GULF COAST

Victoria, Galveston, and Upper Gulf Coast

TX-15 EDINBURG AND LOWER NUECES VALLEY

Hidalgo East & Cameron West

McAllen, Harlingen, & Edinburg

TX-16 EL PASO

El Paso

TX-17 HIGH BRAZOS VALLEY

Brazos Valley

TX-18 HOUSTON CENTRAL

Northeast, Northwest, & South Houston

TX-19 LUBBOCK AND ABILANE

South Plains

TX-20 SAN ANTONIO CENTRAL

Central San Antonio

TX-21 AUSTIN NORTH AND GUADALUPE VALLEY

North San Antonio, Hill Country, & Central Austin

TX-22 SUGARLAND AND PEERLAND

Harris Southeast & Fort Bend

TX-23 SAN ANTONIO OUTER AND RIO GRANDE VALLEY

South and Northwest San Antonio, Mid Rio Grande, and Trans-Pecos

TX-24 CARROLTON AND GRAND PRAIRIE

Mid-Cities

TX-25 AUSTIN SOUTH AND LOWER COLORADO VALLEY

South Austin & Colorado Valley

TX-26 FORT WORTH CENTRAL AND DENTON

Denton & East Fort Worth

TX-27 CORPUS CHRISTI AND BROWNSVILLE

Corpus Christi, Brownsville, and Padre Island

TX-28 SAN ANTONIO EAST AND LOW RIO GRANDE VALLEY

Laredo, Hidalgo West, & South Texas

Almost none of San Antonio, or even Bexar County, and Laredo is definitely not Lower Rio Grande Valley.

TX-29 HOUSTON EAST AND BAYTOWN

East and North Houston & Pasadena

TX-30 DALLAS CENTRAL

South and West Dallas

TX-31 STEPHENVILLE AND LEON RIVER VALLEY

Killeen, Temple, & Round Rock

TX-32 DALLAS NORTH AND IRVING

North Dallas, Irving, & Richardson

[Verily]

It largely just meanders through obnoxiously wealthy exurbs in Hunterdon like my parents' home town, obnoxiously wealthy exurbs (transitioning to suburbs) in Somerset like Bridgewater, and obnoxiously wealthy suburbs (they're too well located to be exurbs) in Union like Westfield.

It's funny that you mentioned Bridgewater, where my sister lives, and Westfield, where her husband grew up. While they're pretty nice, I don't think of either one as "obnoxiously wealthy" although Bridgewater has its McMansion areas alongside the older homes. Anything I'd call by that term is in the 11th district, like Harding Twp., Millburn, Chatham, and the places where Steve Forbes lives.

My aunt used to live in Bridgewater, and she was obnoxiously wealthy, so I have at least anecdotal evidence that the area is obnoxiously wealthy. She lived in the McMansion area, though her own house was not a McMansion (some sort of miniature-castle-looking thing built in the 1940s).

My problem with NJ-07 is that, while the district as a whole does a good job of representing wealthy people (as does NJ-05), it doesn't represent any sort of coherent community. Sure, the people of Hunterdon County and the people of Westfield are both very wealthy, but otherwise they have little in common. The Hunterdon-ites fit better with Warren County while Westfield would connect better with places like Plainfield and Millburn.

If I ever finish my remapping project, I'll post my own suggestion, though actually I had quite a bit of trouble with this area myself. It's really Sussex, Warren and Hunterdon that are a pain to fit in anywhere else; I ended up with those three combined with most of Somerset and the wealthy north end of Mercer. (Poor Princeton got stuck in that district, too.)

[Former Moderate]

Being from Hunterdon, and formerly working in Warren, I know that while parts of Warren are trending in the exurb direction (like Greenwich Township), most of it has more in common with Sussex County to the north than Hunterdon County.  Besides, Hunterdon really doesn't have any towns in it quite like Phillipsburg, which is quite run down with a growing number of Section 8 residents and a growing low-income minority community.

And I don't think Plainfield and Westfield have much of anything in common except for geography.

[Gravis Marketing]

If I ever finish my remapping project, I'll post my own suggestion, though actually I had quite a bit of trouble with this area myself. It's really Sussex, Warren and Hunterdon that are a pain to fit in anywhere else; I ended up with those three combined with most of Somerset and the wealthy north end of Mercer. (Poor Princeton got stuck in that district, too.)

I'd love to see it. Did you take into account incumbents or just draw the best maps? Incumbency is going to be the biggest obstacle to drawing sane maps in 2012, unless Pallone and Chris Smith decide to swap homes.

[Kuu ülevaade olulisematest]

Doing the Bay Area districts for real:

CA-5: Sacramento
CA-6: Santa Rosa-Point Reyes
CA-7: Richmond-Vacaville
CA-8: San Francisco
CA-9: Oakland
CA-10: River Delta
CA-11: Danville-Morgan Hill-Manteca
CA-12: San Francisco Peninsula North
CA-13: Fremont-Alameda
CA-14: San Francisco Peninsula South
CA-15: Santa Clara Valley West
CA-16: San Jose

[Mr.Phips]

FL-01:  Western Panhandle
FL-02:  Eastern Panhandle and Tallahassee
FL-03:  A mess of a district that connects every black majority precinct north of Orlando.
FL-04:  Northeastern Florida and Jacksonville(minus every black precinct).
FL-05:  West Central, Gulf of Mexico.
FL-06:  Pretty much everything in north central Florida that is not in FL-03 or FL-05.
FL-07:  Northeast Coast, Daytona Beach.
FL-08:  Orlando(minus black precincts).
FL-09:  Tampa suburbs
FL-10:  Pinellas County(minus St. Petersburg), Largo.  New York in the South.
FL-11:  Tampa and St. Petersburg
FL-12:  Polk county and deep south parts of Hillsborough county.
FL-13:  Sarasota
FL-14:  Fort Myers, Naples.
FL-15:  Space Coast, Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, Kissimmee.
FL-16:  West Palm Beach, Port St. Lucie, and the Everglades.
FL-17:  African American neighborhoods of Miami Dade.
FL-18:  Miami, Key West.
FL-19:  Coral Springs, most Jewish precincts in Miami Dade and Broward.
FL-20:  Broward county's Jewish areas.
FL-21:  Hialeah.
FL-22:  West Palm Beach, Boca Rotan.
FL-23:  Boynton Beach, Sunrise, Pompano Beach.
FL-24:  Upper Space Coast.
FL-25:  Southern Florida.

[Verily]

If I ever finish my remapping project, I'll post my own suggestion, though actually I had quite a bit of trouble with this area myself. It's really Sussex, Warren and Hunterdon that are a pain to fit in anywhere else; I ended up with those three combined with most of Somerset and the wealthy north end of Mercer. (Poor Princeton got stuck in that district, too.)

I'd love to see it. Did you take into account incumbents or just draw the best maps? Incumbency is going to be the biggest obstacle to drawing sane maps in 2012, unless Pallone and Chris Smith decide to swap homes.

No incumbency, although I don't know exactly where everyone lives. It could, coincidentally, place each congressman in his own district. (I'm pretty sure I put Rothman and Garrett in the same district, though, a district that Rothman would win handily.) I didn't take race into account, either, but I had the good fortune of creating a majority black and a plurality Hispanic district anyway.

I still have South Jersey left to do; most of Mercer, all of Monmouth, and all of the counties southwards. But the hard part is probably over (other than compiling all of the irritatingly small coastal towns).

Edit: Wait, no, I forgot I moved Fair Lawn into the Passaic County district. So actually Rothman is separated from his district and put in with Pascrell while the bulk of Rothman's district has Garrett in it, but Garrett could never win it.