Local vs regional road connections

[jimrtex]

Torie, what are your criteria for where you did split swaths of unincorporated area into separate subunits? We should be consistent. I still think it makes no sense to absorb included unincorporated areas into cities, but not minimal pockets trapped between two cities.

I don't have a problem if we want to make all the incorporated munis stand out even when surrounded. I don't think it will make a difference in the end, but that's just my opinion. I would note that towns are recognized as incorporated units. There are four in the county - Beaux Arts Village, Hunts Point, Skykomish, Yarrow Point. I would think that you want to treat these towns the same as cities.

I think that we need a clear statement of principles, that individual States can adapt to policy appropriate to their circumstances.

At best we are doing is experimenting with policies that Washington might adopt.

[jimrtex]

This is my proposed subunit map for King County.



It was generated directly from block-level census data, which includes. among other data, for each census block: (1) census place (city or CDP); (2) school district; (3) population; (4) land area; and (5) water area.

It was used in conjunction with place data (for King County); and school district (for Washington).

Using Excel, a count of census blocks for each school district was obtained. This isolated the list of school districts in King County, either wholly or part. We treat a city or school district that spans the border as being separate entities.

Next using a two dimensional array of place X school district, the population of the intersection of place and school district was calculated.

For each incorporated city, its largest school district was compared to see if it exceeded 80% of the total population of the city. If it did, then the blocks in the city were reassigned to the predominate school district. (the original school district is retained. A new column was calculated with the assignment to the predominate school district, now a proto-subunit).

For the other three cities, which are divided among districts, (Black Diamond, Sammamish, and Newcastle), blocks were assigned to city-specific subunits. These subunit/cities are shown in red.

Finally, blocks that satisfied all of these conditions: (1) no population; (2) no land area; and more than a km² of water area were assigned to a special subunit. This did not work particularly well. It picked up inland waters and missed areas of Puget Sound. There are feature files that associate specific blocks with water features, which could be used for Puget Sound and other external waters.

The block shapefiles were loaded into QGIS, and joined with a .csv file that contained the Block GeoID-subunit pairs. A new layer was created by dissolving the boundary between blocks in the same subunit. That is what is shown here.

The dissolution was not particularly fast (hours rather than minutes or seconds), but King County has 35,838 blocks.

[jimrtex]

I like the map, and it seems to also match my principles with a different prioritization. My concern returns to the nature of incorporation in WA.

The city of Lake Forest Park was incorporated specifically to have an identity separate from the larger Shoreline school district. That's why I like the OH model better here, communities that incorporate get a higher level of recognition as subunits. I think my map creates that same type of recognition for incorporated communities.

Or was it to keep out of Seattle?

Before WWII, the northern limits of Seattle were 85th and 66th, with a jog south a bit west of 15th Avenue. The area to the north was semi-rural, with folks keeping chickens, etc. During WWII the area developed as workers came to work at Boeing and other wartime industries, and areas were annexed in ordet to get city street and water. Annexation was done on a precinct by precinct basis, mostly between 1941 and 1953. Lake Forest had been developed much earlier, and had southward access via Lake Washington. With incorporation in 1961, it might have been out of concern that they would be swallowed by the big city.

But there must have either been a change in city policy or state annexation law, since Shoreline did not incorporate until 1995.

I've been doing some looking around on the King County web site, and King County (and perhaps Washington state) have some pretty aggressive annexation policies.

There is something called the Washington State Boundary Review Board for King County. This suggest that all counties, or at least major counties have one, which reviews boundaries.

There is also something called an Urban Growth Area which limits urban growth. Within this boundary, in King County, there are "Potential Annexation Areas" PAA, which are expected to be annexed to the city - I think it would be really hard for a city to go outside the UGA or their PAA. In King County the PAA cover most of the unincorporated areas around cities, and many have been annexed. Kirkland annexed a really big chunk north so it now abuts Bothell, etc., increasing the population from 49,000 to 83,000 (A curiosity was that the vote was 59.94% in favor. A 60% vote is required for the new area to assume a share of the existing city indebtedness. But the city can go ahead and approve the annexation, with the annexed area only acquiring future debt. Kirkland went ahead and annexed the area. If the debt was for localized infrastructure, this is probably a fair deal. And even if for things of more general use, such as a convention center, the existing city would have considered the tax burden without the annexed area).

This could let the UGA boundary be used as part of a subunit boundary, with the cities and their PAA forming subunits. There are some small gap areas, that might be assigned. There are recognized drainage areas, which might be better for the eastern part of the county than school districts, though I suspect the school districts already correspond to these, at least roughly. Unless there were manned ranger stations in April 2010, I suspect the areas are unpopulated.

The difference between a 1st Class City, 2nd Class City, and Towns are their population when they were formed. The threshold for creation of a Town was 300, but now an incorporation requires 1500 persons, so the Towns are stuck.

There are also Code Cities, that require 1500 persons. This is actually a form of home rule, rather than as I might have expected, governed by state law. The 1st Class cities are what you would expect, with Aberdeen being a bit of outsider. The 2nd Class cities seem to be oddballs, and there aren't very many. So towns are stuck, unless they grow, and the 2nd Class cities might not see a reason to switch to home rule.

There is a reservation in King County, part is in southeastern Auburn (three point-connection sections) and the rest along the county boundary further southeast. We could either ignore it, or include all of it as a neighborhood of Auburn.

Incidentally, Snoqualmie Pass is closed for avalanche control. I hope Torie got his map drawn before then. Do you think we should tell him about the secret special connection rule

[jimrtex]

I saw the UGAs and PAAs on the King website. I prefer the subunit principle that requires county subunits use boundaries that are recognized by the Census. It's easier to generalize to other counties and states, and the source of the definition is clear.

The census maps are out of date. I think the aggressive annexation policy started in 2009.

I would expect that the units would be defined around 2018. I think the census geographic data is released in December of 2020, so that the redistricting, etc. can be programmed in anticipation of the PL 94-171 release in the spring. Incidentally, cities in Washington are required to redistrict city council districts within NN(60?) days of receipt of the data from the Washington Redistricting Commission. It appears that they just do prep work, rather than actually get involved.

AFIAC, so long as the unit boundaries conform to census blocks, they are fine.

I would think that a state would be more likely to adopt your process if they have a role in defining its use.

[jimrtex]

The pass over the mountains for LA County to Kern County gets closed sometimes too.

Sorry, Jimrtex, I don't like your map. It kills off entities wholesale. It makes the one bite rule all the more important, as it forecloses options like a good lawn mower cuts grass. Good policy is more important to me than implementing the perfect theory.

"good policy" is a slogan. So is "perfect theory"

I don't know what the one bite rule is, and why it is more important, or forecloses options.

[jimrtex]

This is a second attempt.



I included CDP's, and lowered the threshold for having a dominant school district to 2/3 (that is, if the largest school district in a place has more than twice as many students, as any other school districts combined, the entire place goes with the dominant school district.

[jimrtex]

If the folks in Washington were to ask whether this methodology could also be used for legislative districts, what would you tell them? What if any adaptations would be needed?

Washington has 49 legislative districts, which elect one senator and two representatives by position. The constitution requires nesting of representative districts within senate districts, so formally, senate and representative districts are coterminous.

It is constitutional to divide a senate district into two distinct representative districts. Such division need not be done on a statewide basis.

So consider several possibilities:

(1) Draw 49 legislative districts as now.
(2) Draw 49 senate districts, then divide each into two representative districts.
(2a) Make an object decision on whether to actually split a senate district into the representative districts.
(3) Draw 98 representative districts, then pair into senate districts.
(3a) Make an objective decision on whether to dissolve the pair of representative districts into a single district.

[jimrtex]

1) Draw 49 legislative districts as now. The current regime just elects two representatives at large with a senate district?
(2) Draw 49 senate districts, then divide each into two representative districts.
(2a) Make an object decision on whether to actually split a senate district into the representative districts. Some senate districts would have at large elections for representatives, and others not, based on some "objective" criteria? Oh my.
(3) Draw 98 representative districts, then pair into senate districts. Isn't this the same as (2)? How does the order matter?
(3a) Make an objective decision on whether to dissolve the pair of representative districts into a single district. This seems to be the same as 2a.

In general, it seems pointless to me to have two representatives per district. I guess if the term lengths are different, there is some rationale for that. I can see that if you want universal nesting, you really need to draw the representative districts first, because it is easier to then just combine the two districts into Senate districts, where if you draw the senate districts first, their bifurcation might create a map mess, since there is no way to sensibly bifurcate, that does not make a mess.

The Washington constitution just says that representative districts can not cross senate district lines. Before the OMOV decisions of the 1960s, they would attempt to balance population growth in the Seattle area by moving representative districts. Senate districts in the rural areas might have one representative, while those in urban areas would have three.

After the OMOV rulings were applied, there were then two representatives per senate district. In more rural areas, two representative districts were drawn (this might have been a court-drawn map). But there continued to be a few split districts (until IIRC, 1990). There was one such pair of districts which had one district along the Columbia up to Longview, with the second along the Pacific Coast.

There have been bills that would require separate representative districts, none of which have gone anywhere because of among other reasons, incumbent protection. There was one case that one representative was said to be able to look down into the backyard of the other representative, and wondered how they could draw the boundary between those two incumbents.

Ohio requires that senate districts be comprised of three representative districts, which sometimes results in districts chained end to end. Illinois divides senate districts, and there are some senate districts stretching outward from Chicago, that are sliced lengthwise.

[jimrtex]

If the folks in Washington were to ask whether this methodology could also be used for legislative districts, what would you tell them? What if any adaptations would be needed?

Washington has 49 legislative districts, which elect one senator and two representatives by position. The constitution requires nesting of representative districts within senate districts, so formally, senate and representative districts are coterminous.

It is constitutional to divide a senate district into two distinct representative districts. Such division need not be done on a statewide basis.

So consider several possibilities:

(1) Draw 49 legislative districts as now.
(2) Draw 49 senate districts, then divide each into two representative districts.
(2a) Make an object decision on whether to actually split a senate district into the representative districts.
(3) Draw 98 representative districts, then pair into senate districts.
(3a) Make an objective decision on whether to dissolve the pair of representative districts into a single district.

Illinois also has nested representative districts in senate districts, but must create two separate house districts in each senate district. When I applied my technique to IL legislative districts, it worked better to build the senate districts then make the division into house districts. When creating districts, I like grouping whole counties in a whole number of districts just like we did with FL. If I use the house districts, I'm tempted to use an odd number of house districts in a region, and that leads to more chops for the senate.

So, for WA I would lean towards your option 2a. Create the senate districts, then allow the state to determine if it wishes to divide the senate districts into pairs of representative districts.

I was really aiming at drawing legislative districts, and noting the overall parameters that one could legally use in Washington.

But let's say that we chose 2a, and so drew 49 senate districts, with no concern for how well they would look when divided into house districts. We might that then have an independent process that would propose a split into house districts, with a final decision made on whether to actually make the split.

But the real question was whether the same methodology could be used for drawing 49 legislative district seats, as used when drawing 10 congressional districts (you can't go to 50 under the Washington constitution, so no congressional nesting unless you want to zap 12 legislators).

[jimrtex]

When I applied my technique to IL legislative districts, it worked better to build the senate districts then make the division into house districts. I would have thought the opposite. When creating districts, I like grouping whole counties in a whole number of districts just like we did with FL. If I use the house districts, I'm tempted to use an odd number of house districts in a region, and that leads to more chops for the senate. You want more chops?

Maybe what is driving you, is that you want an even number of seats in the Senate, and an odd number in the House. More likely, I am just in a state of confusion.

As a matter of fact, the system of fusion used in New York is a con. See the ballot for Hudson Ward 4 alderman as an example. It's not just you, there are millions more living in the same situation.

I think nesting is a bad idea. It seems like one approach - splitting, or joining should work. But the reality is that population concerns require some pretty ugly splits. If a house district has an ugly split, then joining it with another house district means that the senate district will also have the ugly split. If the reverse is done, an ugly senate split, will mean at least one of the house districts has an ugly split.

California has a modest requirement for nesting. I think it was expected that sometimes you might want to use a city boundary for a senate district, but that might not work so well for assembly districts. But what really caused the deviation was VRA requirements. For example, you can probably imagine where a minority-opportunity senate district, would divide nicely into a packed-assembly district, with the other assembly district being much whiter.

[jimrtex]

3.Did the 7th circuit case involve CD's? Most states require absolute equality of population with CD's. If equality suddenly became important, we would suddenly be getting more chops over a few people. Not good.

The 7th circuit case involved CD's at a time when IL was not strict about absolute equality. It is still not codified to have absolute equality, nor are any other provision codified other than language related to minority districts. However, after that decision both parties have drawn maps with absolute equality to remove the possibility they would be beat in court by an inequality argument, since there are no other codified criteria.

In the WV case there were a number of whole county plans presented with lower deviation. The actual plan because it had the least deviation for the particular state goal which is to minimize the shifted population. The decision noted that if it were solely to avoid splitting counties they would have been required to use a whole county plan with less deviation. That's what they meant by as nearly practicable.

What I worked out for MI and could generalize is a table derived from actual data regressions that limits the ability to chop just to get to absolute equality. A simple example is to consider that absolute equality requires in most cases a number of county chops equal to one less than the number of districts. If the inequality table provides fewer points to gain than the number of districts (ie the number of chops required), then one can't win by chopping to exact equality.

I suspect that the 7th Circuit decision depends in part that it was a decision by a federal court.. The federal court is not a state court, and it is not a state legislature or Congress. A legislature can use its judgment, so long as it complies with the constitution. A court is stuck with trying to balance things.

The legislature in Florida would have been in much better shape if they actually managed to pass a congressional or senate map.

[jimrtex]

More likely, I am just in a state of confusion.

As a matter of fact, the system of fusion used in New York is a con. See the ballot for Hudson Ward 4 alderman as an example. It's not just you, there are millions more living in the same situation.

I don't get the 4th ward reference in this context.

You said that you lived in a state of confusion. You live in a state that uses fusion voting, and it is a con.

The 4th ward ballot had three candidates and you could vote for two. One candidate was in her own column, but you could vote for her on the Democratic, Republican, or Independence line. The other two candidates were in the other column, running as the candidates of other parties.

If the two candidates had both been Democratic nominees, then they would have been in different columns.

Confusion, no?

[jimrtex]

This shows a possible 3rd-level of units.



Methodology:

Do distinction was made among census places. Incorporated cities and towns and CDP's were treated the same. I will use the census terminology of place.

(0) The initial subunits were the school districts.

(1) The dominate school district for each place was determined based on population.
(a) If the dominant school district included more than 2/3 of the place of the population, then the entirety of the place was moved into the subunit based on the dominant school district.
(b) If less than 2/3 of the place was in the dominant school district, then a new subunit was created just containing the place.

In King County, Sammamish, Newcastle, Black Diamond, and Maple Heights CDP became part of subunits independent of a a school district.

As a result of step 1, all places are entirely within a 2nd-level subunit. Each 2nd-level subunit contains zero or more places, and may also contain territory outside any place (county remainder).

(2) 3rd level subunits were created:
(2a) In each 2nd level subunit that contained 2 or more places, each place became a 3rd level subunit. In addition, any territory outside a place, became a 3rd level subunit.
(2b) In each 2nd level subunit that contained 0 or no places, no subunits were defined. Alternatively, the 2nd-level and 3rd-level subunits are coincident.

4th level units may be defined to recognize neighborhoods within places. Larger cities might have two levels, if they have defined super neighborhoods.

Seattle, Vashon Island, Mercer Island, Tukwila, and Enumclaw subunits based on the school districts have no 3rd-level subunits; nor do the Sammamish, Newcastle, Black Diamond, and Maple Heights CDP subunits based on the places.

Seattle school district has areas outside the Seattle City limits, and parts of the city are in school districts other than the Seattle school district. But step moved all of the city into the subunit based on the school district. The areas outside the city, were in places which were predominately in other school districts (mainly Highline school district). Thus the subunit based on the Seattle school district is after adjustments, coterminous with the city limits.

In the map above, 3rd-level subunits are indicated with gray tones, with a colored partially-transparent overlay for the 2nd-level subunits.

Incidental Note: The Census Bureau regards Urban Growth Areas as legal entities, and census block are coded based on their UGA. In King County, cities in the west near Seattle and Puget Sound are coded with an UGA that is the same as the city. Unincorporated areas within the UGA in the western part of the county are coded as a "King County UGA".

Around inland cities such as Carnation, Enumclaw, Duvall, etc. the UGA is coded with the city, and would probably be a more suitable unit than the city proper.

[jimrtex]

This shows an alternative possible 3rd-level of units.  Places of less than 5000 population are treated as not being in a place.



Methodology:

No distinction was made among census places. Incorporated cities and towns and CDP's were treated the same. I will use the census terminology of place.

(0) The initial subunits were the school districts.

(1) The dominate school district for each place was determined based on population.
(a) If the dominant school district included more than 2/3 of the place of the population, then the entirety of the place was moved into the subunit based on the dominant school district.
(b) If less than 2/3 of the place was in the dominant school district, then a new subunit was created just containing the place.

In King County, Sammamish, Newcastle, Black Diamond, and Maple Heights CDP became part of subunits independent of a a school district.

As a result of step 1, all places are entirely within a 2nd-level subunit. Each 2nd-level subunit contains zero or more places, and may also contain territory outside any place (county remainder).

(2) 3rd level subunits were created:
(2a) In each 2nd level subunit that contained 2 or more places with a population of 5000 or more, each such place became a 3rd level subunit. In addition, any territory outside such a place, became a 3rd level subunit.
(2b) In each 2nd level subunit that contained one or zero such places, no subunits were defined. Alternatively, the 2nd-level and 3rd-level subunits are coincident.

4th level units may be defined to recognize neighborhoods within places. Larger cities might have two levels, if they have defined super neighborhoods.

Seattle, Vashon Island, Mercer Island, Tukwila, and Enumclaw subunits based on the school districts have no 3rd-level subunits. The threshold added Bellevue, Riverview, and Skykomish to the list. In addition the Sammamish, Newcastle, Black Diamond, and Maple Heights CDP subunits based on the places.

Seattle school district has areas outside the Seattle City limits, and parts of the city are in school districts other than the Seattle school district. But step moved all of the city into the subunit based on the school district. The areas outside the city, were in places which were predominately in other school districts (mainly Highline school district). Thus the subunit based on the Seattle school district is after adjustments, coterminous with the city limits.

In the map above, 3rd-level subunits are indicated with gray tones, with a colored partially-transparent overlay for the 2nd-level subunits.

Incidental Note: The Census Bureau regards Urban Growth Areas as legal entities, and census block are coded based on their UGA. In King County, cities in the west near Seattle and Puget Sound are coded with an UGA that is the same as the city. Unincorporated areas within the UGA in the western part of the county are coded as a "King County UGA".

Around inland cities such as Carnation, Enumclaw, Duvall, etc. the UGA is coded with the city, and would probably be a more suitable unit than the city proper.

[jimrtex]

This is a Pierce map. Subunits are based on school districts, adjusted to put all of places in a single subunit.

Lake Tapps CDP, Prairie Ridge CDP, Summit CDP, and Summit View CDP do not have a school district with 2/3 of their population, and form their own subunit.



Pierce has 14506 blocks vs. 34506 blocks in King County, and the merging appears to run much quicker.

[jimrtex]

This is a Pierce map. Subunits are based on school districts, adjusted to put all of places in a single subunit.

Lake Tapps CDP, Prairie Ridge CDP, Summit CDP, and Summit View CDP do not have a school district with 2/3 of their population, and form their own subunit.



Pierce has 14506 blocks vs. 34506 blocks in King County, and the merging appears to run much quicker.

Here is combination of 2nd and 3rd level units, based on the refined algorithm for King County.

[jimrtex]

That light green thing near the top has an unfortunate shape. Is that due to geographic barriers?

The boundary between the precincts in light green and lilac is the actual SD boundary, too. There's not really any population in the western part of that light green area, it's all mountain. However, the Olympia SD (light green) actually includes the western part of state hwy 8 in the pink precinct, but not the part at the junction with US 101. I'm guessing that the western pink precinct is drawn to connect all the parcels along s.h. 8 even though that includes part of western Olympia SD.



You can see how poorly the precincts match here. Kitsap would probably have had an additional precinct with few if any residents to cover the separate SD along s.h 8 if they were in charge.

Under vote-by-mail, there is not any reason for having election precincts. Voting jurisdictions and districts can be tied to street addresses, and there is no need for polling places.

However, it appears that Washington has retained its previous law, that requires precincts to conform to city boundaries, and county, state, and federal legislative districts. It also sets a cap of 1500 voters. Oregon now has a cap of 5000 voters.

[jimrtex]

Putting on my "artist" hat, what is beyond per adventure is that Jimrtex's maps are a heck of lot prettier than Muon2's hideous washed out affairs. The one above is an object d'art, suitable for framing. I particular like that little horizontal red triangle, with the vertical dodger blue rectangle below, on the lime green background. The light brown shape in the east is also superb.

The colors are randomly assigned. Should I generate several versions, and let you judge which is best?

Here is Snohomish.

[jimrtex]

Here's Yakima. As with the others I used the cities and towns as separate subunits (but not places), then school districts for the remaining unincorporated areas. Precincts were assigned to the district with the most population, as best as I could tell from the map (I don't have the block data that jimrtex has.)



The Yakama Indian Reservation takes up a lot of the land in the county. Here are the subunits completely outside the reservation.

Naches town (brown) 795
Naches SD (peach) 7,331

Tieton city (dark blue) 1,191; 57.6% HVAP
Highland SD (slate blue) 4,410; 29.6% HVAP

Selah city (violet) 7,126
Selah SD (lilac) 14,460

Yakima city (dark green) 91,023; 33.5% HVAP
Moxee city (dark aqua) 3,308; 34.0%HVAP
West Valley SD (lime) 11,890
Yakima SD (green) 451
East Valley SD (aqua) 11,352

Union Gap city (tan) 6,047; 38.1% HVAP
Union Gap SD (yellow) 104

Zillah city (olive) 2,964; 35.0% HVAP
Zillah SD (khaki) 2,194; 25.0% HVAP

Sunnyside city (orange-red) 15,854; 75.9% HVAP
Sunnyside SD (salmon) 8,883; 56.4% HVAP

Grandview city (teal) 10,862; 73.6% HVAP
Grandview SD (turquoise) 3,390; 47.6% HVAP

Mabton city (deep pink) 2,286; 89.4% HVAP
Mabton SD (pink) 1,224; 63.6% HVAP

Bickelton SD (coral) 66; 27.3% HVAP

There's an interesting issue that arises here due to the Yakama Indian Reservation. It is served by 4 separate school districts (Mabton SD covers an unpopulated part of the reservation), but only Mount Adams is entirely within the reservation. The cities in the reservation are overwhelmingly Hispanic and less than 20% of the native population lives in those reservation cities. Here are the stats for the reservation subunits:

Harrah town (indigo) 625; 16.8% NVAP; 51.7% HVAP
Mount Adams SD (orchid) 4,257; 48.9% NVAP; 21.6% HVAP

Wapato city (dark red) 4,997; 6.5% NVAP; 79.4% HVAP
Wapato SD (dark salmon) 8,619; 24.2% NVAP; 39.8% HVAP

Toppenish city (medium blue) 8,949; 7.4% NVAP; 78.5% HVAP
Toppenish SD (light blue) 4,949; 20.6% NVAP; 44.1% NVAP

Granger city (green) 3,246; 1.5% NVAP; 83.6% HVAP
Granger SD (light green) 2,353; 11.9% NVAP; 44.1% HVAP

The reservation as a whole subunit, including munis has 29,978 people including a native population of 6,571. Here are some questions.

Should the reservation be kept together as a single subunit?
If the reservation is not a single subunit, should there be a scoring benefit to keeping the subunits that cover it together?
There is a large rural and small town Hispanic population in some of the subunits, so should these subunits be treated like the rural black counties of the South and maps be penalized that chop the cluster?

Are the numbers for Toppenish SD, NVAP and HVAP (you have NVAP and NVAP)

My inclination would be to keep the reservation whole.

There was an effort to create a Hispanic opportunity legislative district in the Yakima area. This might be a case where they could do so with a separate representative district. The city of Yakima is also in litigation over its city council. One of the interesting amicus briefs in the Texas OMOV case was from the city, who noted that there was no problem coming up with CVAP numbers.

[jimrtex]

I don't get the connectivity issue.

The reservation should be treated like a hybrid county, just like I suggest in AZ. That addresses the first two points.

"There is a large rural and small town Hispanic population in some of the subunits, so should these subunits be treated like the rural black counties of the South and maps be penalized that chop the cluster?"

God no. We have the VRA. Leave it at that. What you are suggesting is moving the VRA towards the Florida law with minority opportunity districts.

I think there will have to be an objective way to draw minority opportunity districts. If you just try to "comply with federal law" or "comply with the VRA" you are guaranteed to end up in court.

My inclination is to start with counties that are 40%+ CVAP of the target minority, but exclude level 2 units that are less than 20%+ minority. Then repeat for 2nd level units, etc.

Conditionally, add areas that improve connectivity while maintaining an overall 40%+ CVAP. Determine the number of districts that will fit in the area (truncate down). Remove the surplus over that needed to create the whole number of districts. Divide the area into the number of districts.

[jimrtex]

The Pike township hall is in Pike twp even with its Magnolia address. It's at 7134 East Sparta Ave which is just off of OH-800 about 2 mi north of East Sparta. There's no problem with its location.

I agree that it is odd that neither Pike nor East Sparta is technically connected to Tuscarawas due to the irregular annexation lines of East Sparta. The question probably should be whether East Sparta is connected to Tuscarawas instead of Pike. Personally I would favor Pike since it is otherwise locally connected to Tuscarawas, while East Sparta is not.

A rule clarification could be: A highway that would otherwise qualify for a regional connection except for a muni taken out is not invalidated a connection. I have a similar interpretation for simple chops at the county level where a highway is interrupted by a precinct line.

I agree with your sense that a plan should be rewarded that keeps the disconnected parts of a township together. On the erosity side there is already some reward as I illustrated with be example. If more reward is needed, then it dividing such a disconnected unit can count towards the chop score.

Historically in Ohio, counties, townships, cities, and villages were similar to in New York. Cities were independent of their township(s), while villages were not. You will see this reflected in the redistricting provisions where villages are among the most protected, since generally to even get to them, you would be splitting a township.

But now the distinction between city and village is based on population. Following the census, the SOS tells each municipality whether they are now a city or village.

East Sparta is part of Pike Township. The broken lines on the census map are an indication of that. But the city of North Canton is also a part of Plain township (and Jackson township, if any of North Canton laps over the line). This is true even though North Canton has 17K.

The circle following the name of some cities indicates that they are independent of any township, that is they are minor county division (MCD). In Stark County, they are Alliance, Canton, Louisville, and Massillon. I'm pretty sure that there must be villages which are MCD somewhere in Ohio.

This is the simple version. Parts of cities can remain part of a township. When Columbus annexed it was taking tax base out of townships. Developers preferred to be annexed, since Columbus would provide water and sewer service, which a township might be ill-equipped to do. In addition, Columbus might cherry pick, not annexing areas that might need municipal services but not provide much tax revenue. So instead of cutting off annexation, or making it more difficult, annexing cities agree to keep annexed territories in townships, and ensure a tax revenue stream goes to the former township. I think there is also a distinction at county lines, since townships can't cross county lines. The tentacles of Columbus are not part of the Columbus MCD.

[jimrtex]

There are 21 minor civil divisions (MCD) in Stark County, 17 townships, and the cities of Alliance, Canton, Louisville, and Massillon. Other municipalities (cities or villages) are shown as the black shadow. (The four other cities are also in black, but I have set the transparency of their MCD status to 0).

[jimrtex]

There are 21 minor civil divisions (MCD) in Stark County, 17 townships, and the cities of Alliance, Canton, Louisville, and Massillon. Other municipalities (cities or villages) are shown as the black shadow. (The four other cities are also in black, but I have set the transparency of their MCD status to 0).

Why does the Census only count some munis as MCDs? Is it a historical artifact? It looks like OH treats them all the same, so they should have equal status as county subunits for redistricting.

I thought I understood it from the time of the redistricting contest, but maybe not.

The cites of Alliance, Canton, Louisville, and Massillon are coterminous with the townships of Butler, McKinley, Constitution, and Massillon, respectively.

When an area is incorporated or annexed to an incorporated city, there must be a formal action to change the township boundaries (counties control township boundaries). The unincorporated part of a township may also file for a change. The statute makes a distinction between cities and villages, in that the county shall make a change if requested by a city, but may make a change if requested by a village..

There was a formal agreement between the cities of Canton and North Canton, and Plain and Jackson townships for development of land along a strip of land alongside railroad tracks, northward from Canton to the Summit County line (the area is west of North Canton). The land would be annexed to Canton, but Canton agreed not to seek to seek annexation into McKinley township.

But Plain township definitely excludes North Canton from its zoning and land use maps. I don't know whether North Canton is not in any township, or is part of Plain township, but not subject to its government.

It may be that the census bureau is recognizing the formal organization of the four townships that coincide with the four cities, while trying to include all territory within a county within an MCD.

[jimrtex]

OK, after 3 cups of coffee, I have finished wading through this nightmare, and think I understand it, although not really your 4 options. What you and Jimrtex have apparently been doing is what I have never done, because to me it doesn't make any sense, so I never considered it.

So let's step back from all of this a bit. Why is it necessary to create two subunits with this chop? Why is it necessary to create Leroy as a node?  Is seems to me that you have the Chatam node, and two highway cuts, one to Butler (with the highway cut at Millry), and one to Wagarville. End of story. So what is the policy reason to create another subunit, and another node. What does it accomplish? What mischief is it designed to stamp out?

Obviously the idea that you can eliminate highway cuts with creative chops that would otherwise exist is ludicrous, as you suggest. But before having to torture my brain with any of this further, we need to get past the the issue of whether or not we need to create another subunit with its own node out of thin air by virtue of a chop of a subunit. The only time I see the need to create a pseudo node is where a subunit not chopped is node-less because the node is parked in another subunit.

My approach is totally different from that of Muon2.

I think it is too complicated to try to score a plan globally on a statewide basis, particularly for legislative districts. So instead I would attempt to draw a map based on first-level units, typically counties, that has pretty good equality. Each region in this map would have a population of a roughly integer number of units. In many cases, the regions would have a population equal to a district, and could be used directly for legislative plans. For congressional maps, they might need some touch-up. Compactness would be measured based on perimeter length.

The process would be repeated for division of the multi-seat regions and any touch-up using secondary units.

[jimrtex]

Do these then make sense as general rules?

A fragmented geographic unit is one where the unit consists of two or more discontiguous parts. All parts of a fragmented unit are considered connected if the entire district is kept wholly within a district, and the unit has a single node. If a fragmented unit is chopped, each discontiguous fragment is treated as a separate geographic unit with its own node.

If a fragment of a unit is entirely surrounded by a unit, and the population of the surrounded fragment is not needed to bring the population range of the districts within the required tolerance, then inclusion of the surrounded fragment with the surrounding unit does not count as a chop of the fragmented unit.

I added the provision about population to limit the ability to game the system by utilizing large surrounded fragments to balance population without a chop penalty. For small fragments it allows plans to maintain strict contiguity by including the surrounded fragments with the surrounding unit.

If there is no connecting path from a geographic unit to any other unit, then a connection exists from that geographic unit to each contiguous unit if there is a local connection to any part of the contiguous unit.

This would provide for connecting links from Meyers Lake to both Canton and Plain twps, and either could be cut, regardless of the status of chops in either township.

I don't know if this is relevant for your discussion, but the new Ohio Constitution legislative redistricting provisions, say that a discontiguous township or municipality is not considered to be split if parts are placed in different districts.

You could conceivably treat each fragment as a node, but provide some sort of bonus if a township is kept whole (or possibly the majority of its population). There could also be consideration to not cutting cities to get to unincorporated enclaves, unless the city was going to be cut otherwise (eg Columbus).