Gerrymandering

[minionofmidas]

Take government's power to draw constituencies away.

[minionofmidas]

Muon, by your definition a bipartisan incumbent protection gerrymander like California's or indeed Illinois' is no gerrymander. That is obviously ridiculous.
(Actually, they do increase the strength of one group over another - they strengthen the incumbents over the voting public, and indeed over other aspiring politicians. Similarly, a map trying to artificially create as many competitive districts as possible could be said to artificially increase the strength of the other party's bench in the area over the incumbents. And if they lead to the cutting apart of party's stronghold areas, they artificially increase the power of swing voters over partisans. Take the artificial example of a single-district-sized heavily Democratic city surrounded by an equal-population heavily Republican countryside, with two competitive districts drawn from 50% of the one and 50% of the other.)
A conscious effort to draw as closely balanced seats as possible is a gerrymander just like a conscious effort to render everybody safe is or a conscious effort to give one party as many seats as possible is. It's just that your map follows some sane criteria as well, and doesn't go to nearly as ridiculous lengths as, say, the current Illinois map.
The only sane criteria are approximate equality of population size and a regard to political boundaries and communities of interest (which includes "racial gerrymandering").

[minionofmidas]

There is a fundamental difference between drawing boundaries to protect incumbents and using competitiveness as a factor among others to draw maps.

There are arguably two, but one fundamental difference lies in the "a factor among others" bit.

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The "in november" part is quite relevant here. A district representing a community of interest, or a number of readily definable non-divided smaller communities of interest, is much more liable to throw up a primary challenge if the incumbent becomes unpopular.