The only way to keep OH 11 majority black is to attach inner-city Akron to it via I-77 or the Cuyahoga River. No matter what you do, you will have to append some white areas to it because the 11th is so badly underpopulated. Once the census comes out, draw the 11th into Akron to get 50% + 1 VAP black and still absorb as much of the West side as possible. You should be able to get all of Cleveland except the 18th and 19th wards, which are only about 55% Obama. The Akron connection would be erose, but you have to do that to get to 50% + 1 anyways. There aren't enough black people just in Cuyahoga County for an entire district. The 10th is overwhelmingly white, but so are the surrounding parts of the 13th and 14th. The 11th needs so many people that it's hard to imagine it not picking up more of the west side.
The numbers came out today. Cuyahoga has 380,198 African-Americans before taking into account Hispanic status. Summit has another 78,120.
Every CD should have around 721,000 residents, meaning 360,500+ is needed for a majority. If you could capture all of Cuyahoga's blacks, you'd be at 52.7% - before taking into account VAP. I'd have to download the whole census file to get the county's VAP, but the African-American VAP percentage is almost certainly lower than that - possibly even less than a majority.
So, yes, appending Summit will likely be necessary to create an effective African-American district in Northeast Ohio. I doubt you'd be able to capture every Cuyahoga County African-American even if you tried - and the county is entitled to about 1.8 of Ohio's 16 CDs.
