100 Senate Seats by population

[muon2]

You might want to compare with the state plans constructed in this thread from 2014.

You should also say what is the limit on population inequality from the quota (exact, 0.5%, 5%), and under what conditions counties may be chopped for your version of this experiment.

[muon2]

The arbitrary county chops in IL make no sense except to create marginally straight lines. Given the large populations there's no reason to chop any county except Cook. In chopping Cook more weight should be given to minority interests.

This plan maintains townships in Cook and neighborhoods in Chicago. It creates a strong minority district with a plurality Black population that is only about a third white. By linking the north side of Cook with Lake and Kane the large Hispanic populations in suburban Aurora, Elgin, and Waukegan are grouped together.

Politically the Cook districts are both strong D, the remaining suburban-NW IL district is lean R and the downstate district is strong R.

[muon2]

The arbitrary county chops in IL make no sense except to create marginally straight lines. Given the large populations there's no reason to chop any county except Cook. In chopping Cook more weight should be given to minority interests.

This plan maintains townships in Cook and neighborhoods in Chicago. It creates a strong minority district with a plurality Black population that is only about a third white. By linking the north side of Cook with Lake and Kane the large Hispanic populations in suburban Aurora, Elgin, and Waukegan are grouped together.

Politically the Cook districts are both strong D, the remaining suburban-NW IL district is lean R and the downstate district is strong R.

It looks like you've chopped the city of Chicago, which gives it outsized influence in two districts instead of just the one that it deserves.

Because in Cook it isn't just about Chicago, but about minority representation. With the large black population and significant Latino population, a cut where I placed it makes a BVAP plurality. If Chicago is kept whole, it's a white plurality.

To keep whole counties, I would also have to chop Chicago to put O'Hare airport with non-Chicago Cook. It's not big, but it is a chop.

[muon2]

How does one make DRA work on Chrome now?

Is there a silverlight extension for Chrome? If not then no way.

Microsoft ceased development for Silverlight a couple of years ago and Chrome disabled Silverlight this year. MS Edge doesn't support Silverlight either if you use it on Win 10.

[muon2]

muon, I think having rationality and commonality are more important than having perfect counties. Having northern Cook (inner suburbs) and Kane (outer suburbs) together like that without any of DuPage looks weird to me.

Here's what I was going for: for the second, it was the city of Chicago + some inner suburbs. The 3rd was the closest suburbs to Chicago. The 4th was Northern Illinois + exurbs. The 1st was downstate. Its not perfect, but it works. I'm not going to worry about having full counties when its very inconvenient.

I agree with rationality. Your 3rd CD (inner suburbs) really isn't that. The suburbs have more commonality splitting north-south than inner outer. The Cubs vs White Sox line reflects real political divisions, too. Besides minority considerations, it's a good way to split Cook. If the state is in charge of the split it is more likely to go this way.

Kane county's population is more inner suburbs than outer suburban. The Fox valley is a collection of old industrial towns that grew, but were overtaken by the suburbs of Chicago in the 1980's and 90's. This includes 2 of the 4 old satellite cities: Aurora and Elgin along with Waukegan and Joliet. That population is not exurban.

On the downstate-upstate line I don't see why it is inconvenient to have whole counties.

[muon2]

Kane county's population is more inner suburbs than outer suburban. The Fox valley is a collection of old industrial towns that grew, but were overtaken by the suburbs of Chicago in the 1980's and 90's. This includes 2 of the 4 old satellite cities: Aurora and Elgin along with Waukegan and Joliet. That population is not exurban.

This is quite an exaggeration, muon.  Elgin's population has more than doubled since 1960.  Aurora's has more than tripled.  They used to be industrial towns, and still have some of that feel in spots (albeit nothing like, say, Cicero), but the recent population growth is almost entirely purely suburban/exurban subdivision stuff. 

And the rest of Kane County (the Tri-cities, etc.) can hardly be described as industrial. 

A lot of the housing built in the 1960's-1970's was small-lot affordable housing that catered to working families. Much of Aurora's more  exurban recent growth was in DuPage and Will counties. Aurora township in Kane has a density of 4200/sq mi which is in the range of Thornton township (3600/sq mi) that borders Chicago on the south and Worth which borders Chicago on the southwest (4800/ sq mi). Elgin's older area sits in both Kane and Cook, so a township comparison is more difficult.

Though the 1800's industry along the Fox in the Tri Cities is largely gone, the east side of the Fox Valley around the DuPage Airport has one of the larger light industrial areas in the region. There's no question that the areas west of Randall Rd in Kane are modern exurbs spilling into ag land, but most of the county lives east of that line and they look like older suburbs such as one finds in the band within a few miles of Chicago proper (eg Des Plaines).