2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[Sol]

I don't think Lynchburg really belongs in a Shenandoah Valley district if you're trying to use fair districting principles.




(mods, let me know if there are licensing issues with the above images; they're an image made by Karl Musser on Wikipedia and from a website which purports to take it from a state gov. source).

[Sol]

I've been playing around with two fair maps, and I'd be interesting in getting your thoughts on both.

Map 1 (link):


Hampton Roads/Richmond


NOVA:


This map has a few advantages. It keeps several logical CoIs whole or mostly whole, like the Shenandoah Valley, the Fredericksburg Area, Hampton Roads cities, greater Roanoke, etc. The lines are pretty clean. However, it has a slight Republican bias (5/11 Clinton seats) though Democrats would have a decent shot in many Trump districts. It also puts Danville in with SW VA which is very unfortunate, and does split the Winchester area. It would also be nice to have a minority-majority district in NOVA.

[Sol]

Map 2: (link)



(Hampton Roads is the same as before no zoom there).



In this version, VA-9 makes a bit more sense. Unfortunately, it does this by splitting the Roanoke area. VA-6 also takes in more of non-Shenandoah rural areas, like Madison and Rappahannock, which aren't great fits. It has 6 Clinton seats instead of 5.

[Sol]

so mostly the same as my map, but a rotation between VA 5/VA 6 and VA 9 to make it more COI based?
I like it, also makes sense to keep the triangle with Western Richmond.

Aw, thanks!

[Sol]

Richmond doesn't need to be cracked. 

This is true, but it kind of screws up the neighboring districts. My 1st needs to pick up population, and it'll end up having to dive into central Virginia or NOVA, neither of which seem to be too attractive relative to Richmond from a CoI perspective.

Also, Southern PWC has more in common with Loudoun than rural VA.

This is fair, so maybe you might prefer my first map?

[Sol]

Here's my Virginia fair map.

That Yellow district is incredibly ugly.

[Sol]

Splitting both Southside and the Shenandoah is a big nope.

Its much better to just accept the unfortunate placement of Roanake and split that area in most scenarios.

Is that illegal too? Or is it just a thought crime like chopping Bucks in PA? I don't give a damn about convention, particularly when it leads to non compact districts. I suspect the CD's would then look like two parallel fajita strips. I find those ugly. It might also take down the Pubs to just 3 safe CD's, if uniting the Shenandoah creates another Pub vote sink, by taking away from them the CD that starts with Loudoun (sp), by having to take in Charlottesville.  Why on earth would the Pubs agree to that? The west of Richmond CD will still be trending Dem even without Charlottesville. Richmond plus NOVA plus Norfolk are just one big Pub hate fest these days.

The Shenandoah being unified isn't a mindless tradition like Bucks--it's a pretty tightly defined community, both in terms of culture and topography, as you can see on this map:


(image by Karl Musser; link to license.)

If you want a reasonable comparison, doing a district connecting the Shenandoah to the Piedmont is a bit like linking Monterrey to Fresno.

[Sol]

I've been playing around with two fair maps, and I'd be interesting in getting your thoughts on both.

Map 1 (link):


Hampton Roads/Richmond


NOVA:


This map has a few advantages. It keeps several logical CoIs whole or mostly whole, like the Shenandoah Valley, the Fredericksburg Area, Hampton Roads cities, greater Roanoke, etc. The lines are pretty clean. However, it has a slight Republican bias (5/11 Clinton seats) though Democrats would have a decent shot in many Trump districts. It also puts Danville in with SW VA which is very unfortunate, and does split the Winchester area. It would also be nice to have a minority-majority district in NOVA.

Map 2: (link)



(Hampton Roads is the same as before no zoom there).



In this version, VA-9 makes a bit more sense. Unfortunately, it does this by splitting the Roanoke area. VA-6 also takes in more of non-Shenandoah rural areas, like Madison and Rappahannock, which aren't great fits. It has 6 Clinton seats instead of 5.

Playing around with another though lol

[Sol]

IMO a fair map must separate parts of NoVa. Having been in the area once in my life, I can safely tell you all that there is far more in common between Arlington and Buchanan County, VA than Arlington and Alexandria.

Yes it means Dems partially benefit from the splitting, but it’s worth it to protect COIs.

This is an incredible tedious schtick.

[Sol]

This map really isn't that bad tbh. It has a few dumb choices, like putting good bit of the Piedmont in with the mountains, splitting the Richmond suburbs, and Williamsburg--but overall it seems pretty reasonable!
Democrats are naturally packed to some extent in NOVA.

[Sol]

Fresh start dem maps, this time clearly Dem maps. Second takes citizen input from the first:

https://www.virginiaredistricting.org/legdistricting/comments/plan/421/1

https://www.virginiaredistricting.org/legdistricting/comments/plan/423/1

Ugh, that's ugly. Charlottesville with suburban Richmond isn't bad in theory, but the way the population map works out means that it insures a split Shenandoah Valley--which is way worse than putting UVA with Southside Virginia.

[Sol]

There's literally no reason to split up the Shenandoah Valley lol, and unlike many silly CoI arguments it's actually quite well-established.  It also doesn't have to interfere with the rest of your map--you just have to rotate things.

[Sol]

Charlottesville is kinda homeless in the sense it has nowhere obvious to go

I find this a little perplexing--it's not solved by increasing the number of districts to 12!

[Sol]

It should be pretty trivial to keep Albemarle/Charlottesville whole--but it's a bit challenging with the configuration the masters have made to put it in a NoVa. Charlottesville in the broader context of map quality fits best with the southside, even if that isn't what Dem hacks would like.

[Sol]

There's more to the map than what is done with Albemarle. In context of the rest of the map, I would favor keeping the county split as it is.

Why?

[Sol]

There's more to the map than what is done with Albemarle. In context of the rest of the map, I would favor keeping the county split as it is.

Why?

I like the ultra-clean boundaries between the Richmond area districts. Changing the borders to unify Albemarle/Charlottesville is highly likely to be detrimental here.

I mean in all likelihood it will just mean splitting Powhatan or Goochland or Fluvanna, which is the same as far as splits are concerned but avoids splitting the Charlottesville area.

[Sol]

This map is honestly the best all cycle, I have no idea why people are complaining.

(The fact that it kind of looks like some ones I drew is a good boost to my vanity).

[Sol]

This map is honestly the best all cycle, I have no idea why people are complaining.

(The fact that it kind of looks like some ones I drew is a good boost to my vanity).

Honestly its pretty close to what I was drawing as well. I can't really diss them. I just went a bit too far on road contiguity which is still important IMO but it is pretty easily fixable.

Either way in the end I will give respect to the special masters for appropriately filtering public comment to listen to genuine comments while obviously ignoring the blatantly partisan/incumbent comments. Not the easiest of jobs against multi million dollar law firms so credit due .

Yeah they probably could have done better with how exactly they handled the specifics of the split in Hampton Roads--I too prefer the configuration you discussed upthread--but considering how many rough commission maps we got I'm not too inclined to nitpick, especially since it looks to be just barely road contiguous and arguably decent in terms of CoI as well (keeping suburbs versus cities together).

[Sol]

While I don't think it'll happen, I'm really hoping VA gains a 12th district in 2030 cause it just makes a good map a lot easier to draw.

Idk, I actually think the current Virginia is pretty ideal--easily the best map in the country and basically no flaws, except the slightly awkward configuration of VA-2 and 3.

[Sol]

It's pretty easy to get the Black % up in the Richmond seat in any case by just hooking Chesterfield to the eastern counties through the north rather than the south, as in the current map.