Chops and Erosity - Mid Atlantic Madness

[traininthedistance]

You have an unnecessary UCC chop in the west: five districts enter the Pittsburgh UCC when only four are necessary. I believe chopping into Chester does the same thing– unless we've decided that single county UCCs get the penalty point instead (in which case I guess it's a wash)?  And PA-8 can in fact go into Philly with no split wards– some erosity, admittedly, but I don't think any more than you incur in Montgomery there.

[traininthedistance]

You have an unnecessary UCC chop in the west: five districts enter the Pittsburgh UCC when only four are necessary. I believe chopping into Chester does the same thing– unless we've decided that single county UCCs get the penalty point instead (in which case I guess it's a wash)?  And PA-8 can in fact go into Philly with no split wards– some erosity, admittedly, but I don't think any more than you incur in Montgomery there.

I have an extra chop in Allegheny, as I admit, but don't you have an extra chop in Philly (you having both PA-07, while I have just PA-07, in lieu of my extra chop into Chester? The PA-08 is 80,000 folks or so, and Philly needs a total chop in of about 120K. So you have two chops into Philly, one in Montco,  one in Chester and one in Berks, and I have one in Philly, two in Chester, and and two in Montco. Yes, if chopping into single county UCC's does not get an extra penalty point, then you have a higher score in the Philly UCC too. But currently under Mike's rules, it does.

Oh, but I forgot that PA-09 enters the Pittsburg UCC. My bad. How inconvenient. PA 09 needs to chop more so that PA-03 does not. I don't like that rule in this case!  Ah, if we just had incremental penalties, and nothing more. But we don't.

I don't think any chops should be treated differently myself, no matter the status of the county, with the sole function of UCC's, multi county UCC's, being aggregation (hopefully with incremental penalties for the aggregated size of the chop in), but I digress. But right now, all that matters is whether a county is, or is within, a UCC, or not, and the incentive is to chop non UCC counties wherever one can. Not a good system, but in this instance, in PA,  it works pretty well. There is absolutely no reason to prefer chopping Berks in lieu of Chester, and it makes splendidly bad public policy, that no state will enact - ever. There needs to be a level playing field, applicable to all, and just based on the numbers of people involved.

Well, if we are counting single-county UCC chops as a penalty point then I'd either need to a) find a county to chop other than Cambria in my second map, or b) advocate for the superiority of my first map, fans be damned.

Honestly, I'm inclined instead to advocate for Map #1.  Fans, yes, be damned.  It's the best Western PA out there (modulo tinkering with the lines in Allegheny and/or possibly moving the PA-12 chop into Allegheny) no matter the penalty points.  It's certainly an argument that said penalty points should not scale up to relative infinity, as you are advocating for.

My subjective feeling is that the five SEPA counties do actually count more than Berks, which is kind of a mutt county on the outer orbit of the Philly region without as much of an identity as the Delaware Valley or Amish Country.  But yes we are getting into judgments too fuzzy to be admitted into the scoring system, and there are also certainly other places where giving single-county UCCs the same protection as multi-county ones is important to help preserve good options.  (This is another lesson I gleaned from my abortive attempt at Florida.  The Orlando area/Space Coast is really hairy, and you do kinda want to leave open the option to preserve those beach counties.)  I'll have to tinker around with those lines some more, but it's entirely possible that splitting Lancaster, which neither of us have done, might end up being the winner.

[traininthedistance]

The precise lines in SE PA, were dictated by trying to minimize inter-county highway cuts, while avoiding subunit chops. Job one of course is to first identify the county seat, and work from there. I was unable to find a way for PA-08 to chop into Philly without a ward chop, so it chopped into Montco instead. And I needed to make sure PA-02 took in downtown Philly where the courthouse is, to avoid a highway cut from Montco by having the most direct highway able to go from Norristown to the Philly courthouse, without ever touching PA-01. This aspect of the game is the most time consuming. The way PA-16 juts into Chester County was no accident either. Finally, the cut into Montco by PA-06 was designed to avoid a traveling chop, which I think should be prohibited, and thus I won't due it.

I'd also opine that this "aspect of the game", such as it is, seems pretty artificial.  I haven't paid much attention to it with my own metro-area lines, and I am unlikely to see a particularly compelling reason to start doing so.

[traininthedistance]

The suggested UCC rule would however favor Train's map over mine however in the Pittsburg UCC, because his severance of Fayette does not cause the minimum cover to be exceeded, while mine does. The CD that chops of Fayette must also do the other cut, due to the trapped Washington County anomaly, such that if PA-18 takes Washington County in along with Fayette to keep Fayette in the UCC, it causes that CD to cease to be a pack CD. Do we want a trapped county exception to the pack rule?  

I think you mean Greene, not Washington?  Also, which of my maps are you referring to?  Well, both of them are superior to yours when it comes to cover, but the second (worse IMO) one does better on pack.

I would be interested to see the scores comparing Torie's map and mine at some point, when the chance arises.  I'm not sure that Torie's map even saves much in the way of erosity, since two macrochops of Allegheny is liable to get punished (IMO, just on the eye test, that Washington-Westmoreland 18 in both Torie's map and my second one is not so hot either).

After fiddling around some more, I'm not sure I really can much improve the Allegheny lines for my first map anyway.  Lowering erosity in SEPA, though, could still potentially happen.

[traininthedistance]

Here is an alternative Philadelphia for my PA map:



Inequality is higher- -2,331 and +1,709.  Presumably erosity is lower by a couple points.  None of the districts other than 1 and 2 are any different (I think that's in fact the only way to draw Bucks-Philly without splitting wards).

I suspect this would be preferred in situations where there is some amount of inequality leeway.

[traininthedistance]

Is there any way to draw it with only 3 districts in Philly?

Of course there is– but at the cost of an extra chop elsewhere (most likely Montgomery, as per Torie's map). 

One thing I do like about my map is that it doesn't make Bucks take multiple disconnected bites out of Montgomery, a situation that used to be a no-go with the old way of counting chops, and still seems suboptimal.

[traininthedistance]

Torie's speculation regarding Nevada, Arizona, etc. in the SCOTUS thread has inspired what is surely a treat for all y'all Republicans:







All town lines are followed as best as possible; most of the lines are merely unincorporated CDPs here. The VRA is easy to please: 5 and 7 are both BVAP majority (55% and 54%), and 4 is now BVAP plurality (with 41%) as well.  The bites that 1 and 6 take out of Baltco and Montco respectively are I-chops, all others are macro.

Yes, all those UCC penalty points are well and truly unavoidable.  That I was able to find any whole county groups– and Baltimore/Howard/AA, which luckily is entirely within one UCC, seems like the only one around– should ensure this map rockets to the top of the line, chop-wise at least.  Erosity, who knows.  It's gotta be pretty decent on that count, too.  Possibly you could tinker around the edges to improve it, but the general thrust of this map seems pretty optimal.