Redistricting Washington with ten districts

[jimrtex]

The southern crossing is traditionally used for CDs, but it actually a weaker link.  I think you would find that most people in Yakima would head up to Seattle for shopping, rathern than to Vancouver.  More of the population along the Columbia is actually in Oregon.  And if you insist on only the single route, you end up with having to split Yakima County, possibly the city of Yakima itself, and Cowlitz County, possibly very near to Longview.

The reason they use the south is because it is a physical gap in the mountain and also there are people who actually live on that link between the two sides of Washington (otherwise you simply have a 50-75 mile long highway but no people...)

How many people live on the road from Toppenish to Goldendale?  And the population of Skamania and Klicksat counties combined is only 30,000.

[minionofmidas]

This is an interesting idea, but I need to understand some of your non-connections.

He has too many connections, not too few. The two more northerly transcascadian links need to go, and I think the Jefferson-Island link needs to go as well.

[muon2]

This is an interesting idea, but I need to understand some of your non-connections.

He has too many connections, not too few. The two more northerly transcascadian links need to go, and I think the Jefferson-Island link needs to go as well.

The basic number of links is set by which counties are contiguous whether by land or by sea. The question then becomes which connections should be discarded. What I like is the idea for an orderly pruning of links based on some definable rules. In the end, it may be that links are removed based on a local determination, but that can't be generally defined.

[Alcon]

This is an interesting idea, but I need to understand some of your non-connections.

He has too many connections, not too few. The two more northerly transcascadian links need to go, and I think the Jefferson-Island link needs to go as well.

Why should the Port Townsend/Keystone link be discarded?

[muon2]

To follow up, I can compare maps that permit or reject a northern transcascadian connection. Both plans impose a 0.5% deviation from the ideal. The map on the left restricted the connection to a path along the Columbia and requires a split of either Benton (my choice) or Yakima. The map on the right connects Whatcom to Okanogan and points east. It only requires splits of the three counties that must split: Snohomish, King and Pierce.

[Alcon]

The second is the nice, but I take issue with the Lewis-Skamania link in the first.

[muon2]

The second is the nice, but I take issue with the Lewis-Skamania link in the first.

But would mappers in WA ever consider the northern link across the Cascades?

[Alcon]

The second is the nice, but I take issue with the Lewis-Skamania link in the first.

But would mappers in WA ever consider the northern link across the Cascades?

I honestly don't know.  I was incorrect about the Skamania link, though; I guess Wind River Road goes from Cougar to Carson.  It's still probably not realistic, though.  Northern Skamania County is virtually unpopulated, and most of it is federally protected forestland.  There is a town (Stabler) up there, if I recall correctly (Google Maps won't load) but it's tiny.

I'm not sure that the idea of a major trans-Cascadian link has ever been debated, but I get the impression a southern link would be heavily favored.

[jimrtex]

This is an interesting idea, but I need to understand some of your non-connections.

He has too many connections, not too few. The two more northerly transcascadian links need to go, and I think the Jefferson-Island link needs to go as well.

Most of the population of Jefferson County is in the northeastern part of the county.  There are only 500 in the western half, and I suspect that the most of the people in the eastern half of the southern part live right on the Hood Canal.  The highway on the west side of the ferry maintains the route number of Washington 20 which continues to the east across the entire state to Newport on the Idaho state line.

[muon2]

The second is the nice, but I take issue with the Lewis-Skamania link in the first.

But would mappers in WA ever consider the northern link across the Cascades?

I honestly don't know.  I was incorrect about the Skamania link, though; I guess Wind River Road goes from Cougar to Carson.  It's still probably not realistic, though.  Northern Skamania County is virtually unpopulated, and most of it is federally protected forestland.  There is a town (Stabler) up there, if I recall correctly (Google Maps won't load) but it's tiny.

I'm not sure that the idea of a major trans-Cascadian link has ever been debated, but I get the impression a southern link would be heavily favored.

I took that second map and ran the 2004 presidential vote for the districts. I used the two party vote, and strong is over 55%, lean from 52-55%, and competitive from 50-52%.

CD 1 (Everett) Lean D 54%
CD 2 (Bellingham) Competitive R 51%
CD 3 (Vancouver) Lean R 54%
CD 4 (Yakima) Strong R 62%
CD 5 (Spokane) Strong R 59%
CD 6 (Olympia) Lean D 54%
CD 7 (Seattle) Strong D 80%
CD 8 (Bellevue) Competitive D 51%
CD 9 (Kent) Lean D 53%
CD 10 (Tacoma) Strong D

[jimrtex]

This is an interesting idea, but I need to understand some of your non-connections.

Some land questions:

Why doesn't Skagit connect to Okanogan by way of hwy 20, or Snohomish to Chelan by way of US 2?

Why doesn't Okanagan connect to Grant on hwy 155 over the Grand Coulee Dam?

Some sea questions:

Doesn't the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston link Snohomish to Kitsap?

San Juan to Island uses the same ferry as San Juan to Skagit. Isn't that the direct route to Skagit and therefore excluded?

I have edited my link maps.  You may have to do a browser refresh to see them.

I added an Okanogan-Grant border, which was then rejected because it was a near corner boundary.

I removed the San Juan-Island connection due to no direct ferry route.  Locals may argue that the route across Fidalgo Island is simply crossing the edge of Skagit County.

I upgraded the Snohomish-Kitsap link based on the Edmonds-Kingston ferry.

I upgraded the Snohomish-Chelan-Douglas link based on US 2 and the RR over Stevens Pass from Everett to Wenatchee.

[jimrtex]

The basic number of links is set by which counties are contiguous whether by land or by sea. The question then becomes which connections should be discarded. What I like is the idea for an orderly pruning of links based on some definable rules. In the end, it may be that links are removed based on a local determination, but that can't be generally defined.

There is an objective measurement for near-corner boundaries.

Traffic volume could be used for measuring the transportation links.  This could include seasonality, and whether intermediate counties are primarily passed through, or whether the intermediate county forms a destination in its own right.  Distance might be considered, though it would have to take into account the size of the counties.

Local opinion could be considered, though not necessarily determinative.

[jimrtex]

Kudos on creating a district that includes both Olympia and part of the Grand Coulee Dam.

Here is an alternate version.




It places Tacoma along with Lakewood, Fort Lewis, McChord AFB, and the Olympic Peninsula part of Pierce County in one district; and most of the Tacoma suburbs in the district crossing the Cascades.

For Tacoma-Olympia: Thurston 37%; Tacoma 33%; Pierce (non-Tacoma) 30%.

For Cascades-Mt Rainier: Pierce 58%, King 14%, Snohomish 6%, Transcascade 22%.

Positives: Eliminates Wenatchee-Olympia span.

Negative: Almost 50-50 split of Pierce County, making it the dominant county of two CDs, even though it should only have 1.2 CDs.  Aggressive split with the boundary cutting right along the eastern Tacoma city limits (In Seattle this is necessary because of the size of the city, which is about 90% of a CD.  Pierce County would be dominant, even though original effort was made to avoid placing the eastern area in a district that was 3/4 in King County.

[muon2]

Kudos on creating a district that includes both Olympia and part of the Grand Coulee Dam.

Here is an alternate version.




It places Tacoma along with Lakewood, Fort Lewis, McChord AFB, and the Olympic Peninsula part of Pierce County in one district; and most of the Tacoma suburbs in the district crossing the Cascades.

For Tacoma-Olympia: Thurston 37%; Tacoma 33%; Pierce (non-Tacoma) 30%.

For Cascades-Mt Rainier: Pierce 58%, King 14%, Snohomish 6%, Transcascade 22%.

Positives: Eliminates Wenatchee-Olympia span.

Negative: Almost 50-50 split of Pierce County, making it the dominant county of two CDs, even though it should only have 1.2 CDs.  Aggressive split with the boundary cutting right along the eastern Tacoma city limits (In Seattle this is necessary because of the size of the city, which is about 90% of a CD.  Pierce County would be dominant, even though original effort was made to avoid placing the eastern area in a district that was 3/4 in King County.

Here's a version that follows your connectivity, maintains the 0.5% deviation, only splits the three big counties, and generally addresses the negatives.



Tacoma is now in a Pierce-only district so only the remainder of Pierce only makes up 20% of the Olympia district. The Everett district is 63% Snohomish and 37% Kitsap. The remainder of Snohomish is only 37% of the Bellingham district. So, King dominates 3 districts, and Pierce and Snohomish each dominates one district.

[jimrtex]

Here's a version that follows your connectivity, maintains the 0.5% deviation, only splits the three big counties, and generally addresses the negatives.



Tacoma is now in a Pierce-only district so only the remainder of Pierce only makes up 20% of the Olympia district. The Everett district is 63% Snohomish and 37% Kitsap. The remainder of Snohomish is only 37% of the Bellingham district. So, King dominates 3 districts, and Pierce and Snohomish each dominates one district.

How about moving Island to the Pacific-Olympia district which then cuts back the need to go into King County and also much of the portion in Pierce Count, which could be from the Gig Harbor area west of the Tacoma Narrows.

This would mean that the northern district would have to come further south in Snohomish County, but this is OK, since I think your map may require an odd shape around Everett.

And then switch back to the Kitsap-South King configuration, and place the remaining chunk of Snohomish with the district over the Cascades.

This would make that district: Snohomish (Northern Seattle Suburbs and Skyhomish watershed) 0.565, King County (far eastern suburbs and mountains, same area as shown on my map) 0.160; Tacoma (far eastern suburbs and Mt. Rainier) 0.111; and Chelan-Douglas 0.166.

This moves the 3-way split from Snohomish to Pierce, which is better because of the latter's greater population.  In addition, since the link is from Snohomish to Chelan, it makes sense to not simply use a tiny part of the Snohomish population to connect to Seattle suburbs in King County.  The balanced split of Snohomish is somewhat negative - but it should pretty much correspond to an Everett+Marysville vs Edmonds and other Seattle suburbs.  I assume the relationship between Everett and Seattle is somewhat equivalent to that between Aurora, Elgin, Joliet, and Waukegan and Chicago - cities with their own focus that are in the process of being absorbed into the larger metropolitan area, rather than simply being suburbs.

[Alcon]

Most of the population of Jefferson County is in the northeastern part of the county.  There are only 500 in the western half, and I suspect that the most of the people in the eastern half of the southern part live right on the Hood Canal.  The highway on the west side of the ferry maintains the route number of Washington 20 which continues to the east across the entire state to Newport on the Idaho state line.

Yes, most people live either right on the 101/20 corridor or they live on small nests of roads right off of it.  Other than that, there's a few hundred on the Toanados Peninsula (Coyle), but any areas to the west are generally protected land.

The west (along the Pacific Ocean) has a few hundred residents, most of them Indians or spill-over rural livers who probably would self-identify as "rural residents" of Forks.

[ottermax]

Here's a version that follows your connectivity, maintains the 0.5% deviation, only splits the three big counties, and generally addresses the negatives.



Tacoma is now in a Pierce-only district so only the remainder of Pierce only makes up 20% of the Olympia district. The Everett district is 63% Snohomish and 37% Kitsap. The remainder of Snohomish is only 37% of the Bellingham district. So, King dominates 3 districts, and Pierce and Snohomish each dominates one district.

I like this map, because it maintains the connections and makes sense. The part of King County in the green district is mostly Enumclaw which goes well with the district. Eastern cities are kept together such as Wenatchee-E. Wenatchee and the Tri-Cities. Probably one of the best maps so far, and Island county should stay in the yellow.

[jimrtex]

Here's a version that follows your connectivity, maintains the 0.5% deviation, only splits the three big counties, and generally addresses the negatives.



Tacoma is now in a Pierce-only district so only the remainder of Pierce only makes up 20% of the Olympia district. The Everett district is 63% Snohomish and 37% Kitsap. The remainder of Snohomish is only 37% of the Bellingham district. So, King dominates 3 districts, and Pierce and Snohomish each dominates one district.

I like this map, because it maintains the connections and makes sense. The part of King County in the green district is mostly Enumclaw which goes well with the district. Eastern cities are kept together such as Wenatchee-E. Wenatchee and the Tri-Cities. Probably one of the best maps so far, and Island county should stay in the yellow.

Actually about 500,000 of the green district is in King County.   It would go really deep into the county (like to Bellevue).

[muon2]

Here are some more details on my map.

CD 1 (Everett) 672.3 K. Includes Snohomish with roughly all the area on the SW side of the Snoholmie River (426.4 K) and Kitsap (245.9).

CD 2 (Bellingham) 672.7 K. Includes Whatcom (198.4 K), Skagit (124.1 K), San Juan (16.1 K), Island (88.1 K) and Snohomish north of the Snoholmie River and Skykomish valley (246.0 K).

CD 3 (Vancouver) 673.4 K. Includes Clark (459.8 K), Cowlitz (104.3 K), Klickitat (21.1 K), Lewis (76.7 K), and Skamania (11.5 K).

CD 4 (Yakima) 673.3 K.  Includes Yakima (239.6 K), Kittitas (39.7 K), Benton (170.6 K), Franklin (79.7 K), Walla Walla (59.3 K), Columbia (4.1 K), Garfield (2.1 K), Asotin (21.7 K), Adams (17.2 K), and Whitman (39.3 K).

CD 5 (Spokane) 669.2 K. Includes Spokane (464.9 K), Lincoln (10.5 K), Grant (87.8 K), Pend Oreille (13.7 K), Stevens (44.3 K), Ferry (7.7 K), and Okanogan (40.3 K).

CD 6 (Olympia) 672.4 K. Includes Thurston (252.8 K), Clallam (74.4 K), Jefferson (31.2 K), Mason (60.3 K), Grays Harbor (74.4 K), Pacific (22.2 K), Wahkiakum (4.1 K), Pierce from Ft Lewis to south of Puyallup to east of Sumner (138 K), and King along the White River from Enumclaw east (15 K).

CD 7 (Seattle) 672.8 K. Includes King west of Lake Washington with Seattle (594.2 K), Shoreline (51.7 K), and the Lake Forest Park area (26.9 K).

CD 8 (Bellevue) 672.6 K. Includes King east of Lake Washington, Renton, and Kent (522 K), Snohomish from Monroe up the Skyhomish valley (39 K), Chelan (73.8 K), and Douglas (37.8 K).

CD 9 (Kent) 673.0 K. Includes King south of Seattle and from Renton and Auburn to Vashon Island.

CD 10 (Tacoma) 671.5 K. Includes Pierce from the Lower Peninsula east through Puyallup and Sumner.

[jimrtex]

Here are some more details on my map.

How did you make your population projections?

I used the 2006 Census county estimates:

  proj2010 = base2000 * (est2006 / base2000)**(10./6.25)

Where

  base2000 is the April 1, 2000 estimates base, same as census expect where corrected;
  est2006 is the July 1, 2006 estimate issued in 2007; and
  proj2010 is the April 1, 2010 projection.

My county projections seem to be slightly higher than yours, though they must be generally proportional given that we are coming up the same relative deviation for all districts.

[muon2]

Here are some more details on my map.

How did you make your population projections?

I used the 2006 Census county estimates:

  proj2010 = base2000 * (est2006 / base2000)**(10./6.25)

Where

  base2000 is the April 1, 2000 estimates base, same as census expect where corrected;
  est2006 is the July 1, 2006 estimate issued in 2007; and
  proj2010 is the April 1, 2010 projection.

My county projections seem to be slightly higher than yours, though they must be generally proportional given that we are coming up the same relative deviation for all districts.

I use the same formula. Here's what I get for an example in Benton County, WA.

Census Base (C): 142,478
2006 Estimate (E): 159,463
estimate period (n): 6.25
total period (N): 10.0

Projection (P = C*[E/C]^[N/n] ): 170,611

Do you get a different result?

[bgwah]

I don't think East King and SE Snohomish counties should be thrown together with chunks of Eastern Washington like that... It doesn't really make sense. It doesn't even go along I-90. And even then, with "connections" so important, it is worth mentioning that many of those mountain highways are closed during the winter. Even I-90 is closed right now. And even then, except for some ski areas, there's almost nothing between North Bend and Cle Elum/Roslyn...

Skamania-Klickitat is the only appropriate East-West crossing, IMO.

Eastern Washington looks pretty messy in muon's latest map...

[muon2]

I don't think East King and SE Snohomish counties should be thrown together with chunks of Eastern Washington like that... It doesn't really make sense. It doesn't even go along I-90. And even then, with "connections" so important, it is worth mentioning that many of those mountain highways are closed during the winter. Even I-90 is closed right now. And even then, except for some ski areas, there's almost nothing between North Bend and Cle Elum/Roslyn...

Skamania-Klickitat is the only appropriate East-West crossing, IMO.

Eastern Washington looks pretty messy in muon's latest map...

I think it's useful to see some of the difficulties WA will face making a map with 10 CDs. The key is that with 10 CDs about 135 K population from east of the Cascades will have to join with one or more western districts. A 9 CD split (which is still my projected number) works almost perfectly to separate the state along the Cascades.

With 10 CDs the natural tendency is to maintain a connection along the Columbia. To get 135K in the south, one option is to split the Kennewick/Richland/Pasco area. That's the option I used in my first map. Otherwise, to get 135 K requires about 114 K from Yakima County, and that probably would require splitting the city of Yakima itself.


A second attempt uses the northern edge to link a district. There are a number of variations, but invariably the district will link Bellingham to either Coulee Dam, Wenatchee or both. As pointed out by jimrtex, it's not necessarily a great connection through the Cascades national park.


The third way goes across the central Cascades. This can use either Stevens Pass to Wenatchee or Snoqualmie Pass to Ellensburg. Either of these will link Wenatchee or Yakima to suburban Seattle. My version below includes a mix of population from the east in both the south and central corridors. It is possible to make it central only as well by extending the Yakima district well to the west.

[jimrtex]

Do you get a different result?

I found my bug.  I had calculated the growth rate correctly based on the April, 2000 base; but then applied it to the July, 2000 estimate.

This meant I had slightly overprojected the relative share for Clark, Franklin, Pierce, Snohomish, Thurston, and Whatcom; and underprojected the relative share for Grays Harbor, Jefferson, King, and Kitsap.   The changes were very small, with the largest for King amounting to 0.005 CD's, which happened to be balanced by the changes to Pierce and Snohomish.  The other errors were 0.001 (0.002 in Clark).

[jimrtex]

The third way goes across the central Cascades. This can use either Stevens Pass to Wenatchee or Snoqualmie Pass to Ellensburg. Either of these will link Wenatchee or Yakima to suburban Seattle. My version below includes a mix of population from the east in both the south and central corridors. It is possible to make it central only as well by extending the Yakima district well to the west.

Arguably, Skamania and Klickitat are best placed in a western district due to their links along the Columbia to Vancouver.

Besides US 2 over Stevens Pass Stevens Pass web cam there is the main northern US transcontinental railroad route.  Chelan County was set off from Kittitas County in the 1899 because it was so difficult to travel to the county seat in Ellensburg in winter.  Travellers had to travel via Seattle or Spokane by railroad.City of Wenatchee - Great Northern Railroad