NC redistricting revisited

[traininthedistance]

My best shot at a court-drawn/nonpartisan NC. I'm open to suggestions

The one thing I don't like about this map is that the Triad is split three ways. I tend to believe that fair maps should try and keep metro areas together as much as possible. In fact, I find metro area integrity to more important than county integrity, to be honest.  Urban and suburban Greensboro-Winston Salem is an area that ought to have its own congressional district, but has been cracked by both parties. 

Myrick's district is ugly, but it's a perfect CoI.

[traininthedistance]

Here's a nonpartisan map that creates a compact Triad district:

 

Nice, that's very close to my ideal NC map.  I might swap some land between 2 and 13 to put 13 entirely within Wake (and possibly give that little sliver of Durham County which was in 13 to 4 and shift things around acordingly), but other than that I can't think of anything.

[traininthedistance]

Here's my clean North Carolina:



The maximum deviation is +1,618 for District 5; 5 and 6 are over 1K while 10 and 12 are under (normally I use 1K as my maximum deviation).  Splitting a county between 5 and 10 would fix that, but I wanted to show how close you could get with whole counties.

1: 66.3% Obama, 50.3% BVAP.  Durham is a lot more accessible to the rural black counties than the black areas of Raleigh, and besides I want to preserve the all-Wake district (and keep in the Section 5 counties, though it's possible I withdrew from one or two).  I think it's one of the best-looking iterations of this district out there, despite the eight county splits.  I did tinker with the boundaries to make the counties work out for 2, 3, 4, 7.

2: 38.9% Obama.  Still Johnston and Harnett-based, one split with 8 and two with 1.

3: 41.1% Obama.  Mostly just cleaner lines; three splits all with 1.

4: 57.4% Obama.  Two splits with 1, and all of Wake that's not in 13.  Bridging through northern Wake to Franklin saves at least one split elsewhere.

5: 37.1% Obama.  The district lines don't quite match the borders of Winston-Salem, but the intent is that areas within the city limits are in 6.  The only split is with 6, which is nice.

6: 60.1% Obama.  The Triad district.  Only splits Forsyth with 5.

7: 46.1% Obama. One split with district 1.  I tried to make something work like Muon's Lumberton-Fayetteville district and the southern coast instead, but 2 and 3 just ended up getting too squeezed.

8: 50.6% Obama.  One split with district 2.  

9: 39.8% Obama.  Splits Mecklenburg with 12 and Lincoln with 10.  Looks a bit ugly, but "Charlotte burbs" is one of those things which not only has lots of precedent, but is a coherent CoI.  So I'm keeping it.

10: 35.1% Obama.  Only splits Lincoln.  I don't think you can make this district any more compact.

11: 45.5% Obama.  You've seen this one before.

12: 66.0% Obama, 48.9% W/33.7%BVAP.  Any fair map has to have something like this district.

13: 58.8% Obama.  And Wake gets its own district too.

13 county splits, adding one between 5 and 10 would almost halve the max deviation from 1.6K to +844.

[traininthedistance]

No comments?

Here's my map that embeds the CD 1 I created above using neutral redistricting principles. I sought minimal county splits while maintaining some degree of compactness. The only splits are for CD 1 to comply with section 2 (50.04% BVAP), for the two large counties, and for two other counties to get all CDs within 1500 of the ideal size. Microchops of counties smaller than a precinct would be used to get exact population equality. Population deviation and 2008 results are in parentheses. I look forward to comments.

My main problem with it is your District 1; frankly the tendril connecting the minority neighborhoods of Raleigh to the rest of the district is really really ugly and I'd prefer to just comply with Section 5 instead (my "clean" map is, I think, a good example of how you can do so with a minimum of erosity).  It also makes it hard to fit in an all-Wake district, which is something that should exist for sure.

I'd also prefer an actual Triad district, for reasons I've explained before.  Metro area integrity is more important to me than county integrity.

OTOH, I really like your District 2.  The southern half of the map is good.