Using urban county clusters in MI

[traininthedistance]

What's the maximum population tolerance you're using, Torie?  I tend to try and keep each district under 1K away from the ideal, but I'm wondering if you're going for something more stringent here.

Also, Bay City-Saginaw should be covered under paying attention to metro areas, as they are a CSA together.

[traininthedistance]

Here's another potential Michigan, using my usual +-1K population tolerance, and splitting no municipalities except for Detroit:



Notable features: the UP/North (1) and Lansing ( districts are whole-county; 2 and 3 together take in the whole of the Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland CSA and look damn good doing so, the Saginaw-Bay City CSA is made whole; both black-majority districts are at least 54% AA by total pop and 52.5% by VAP.

Flint with the Thumb rather than Saginaw may seem weird to some... but Flint is in the Detroit CSA along with Lapeer and St. Clair Counties, so it actually makes better sense than the status quo w/r/t metro contiguity.  The only actually dodgy part of this map is that both VRA districts leave Wayne County... but 13 obviously has to, to get Southfield/Oak Park, and 12 is justified since there's a higher percentage of blacks in Eastpointe than Dearborn or other points south.

[traininthedistance]

By the way, what is the provenance of your screen name?

I assume it refers to the subatomic particle.

Your red CD (my MI-04) is too erose for me. The magenta CD has a traveling chop of Oakland going to Macomb, which is illegal. The magenta CD also looks too erose to me.  Did you minimize the county chops? Pretty map though. Would you please persuade Muon2 to draw his maps that way?  

The red CD is forced by being surrounded by whole-county districts (or groupings of two districts, as in the GR area) on almost all directions, which I would consider to be sufficient justification for the (small, really, for a district that goes along the water) amount of erosity it entails.  The magenta CD might be fixable to your standards, I'll see.  To be frank, I just don't see any real erosity there, but your point about the traveling chop is a good one.

The only county chop that I would be able to get rid of would be CD-12's venture into Macomb.  I would think, being a VRA district, it gets a little more leeway, but I'd probably be able to get rid of that particular chop.  Besides that, they are strictly minimized- and once I get rid of it, there will be less chops than in your map.

EDIT: I don't know that I want to get rid of it, because it saved me from having to chop a municipality in Macomb (or go over the 1K tolerance).  Within urbanized areas, keeping munis whole should be more important than keeping counties whole, frankly.  I can get it to a deviation of +1,176, though, which I'm sure falls under Muon's accepted tolerance.  So let's roll with that, for the sake of argument.

[traininthedistance]

Also, I just realized, Torie, that your map has a traveling chop in MI-10 (the portion of MI-10 in Oakland is only connected to other chopped counties), and is therefore unacceptable by your standards.

And, may I ask, what standard exactly are you using to call my MI-4 "too erose"?  I would think, you being a fan of balancing tests and all, that being able to get surrounding MI-1 and MI-8 in whole counties would be a factor that your map-making heuristics would smile upon.  

[traininthedistance]

This is a reasonable way to deal with CD-12, but it also highlights some of the problems with most erosity or compactness measures. Let's compare it to my version that meets with your disfavor.

The biggest problem with this map is that there are two districts that span Oakland and Macomb (9 and 11), as well as two that span Oakland and Wayne (9 and 12)- isn't that a no-no in Michigan?

I also prefer my map because it has no muni chops besides Detroit.

Yes, the shape of MI-12 is erose, but on the plus side, it makes MI-13 more compact, in both shape and size. Size is an issue, too. In urban areas, nice compact CD's are preferable, so it is preferable for MI-14 in my mind to go to Washtenaw, rather than suck up Monroe.

Perhaps in the Detroit metro area, your map is as compact as mine (I am still struggling with the erosity test, but I like straight lines, and compactness, and squares and rectangles). The point however, is that by losing your Pontiac reach, your map could be made less erose, so I don't think you have put up "your" best map to compete with mine. That was my point.

Oh, and I finally found the micro-chops up north, and the map below reflects that. I also revised Kent County, to get rid of the jut - at the cost of a muni split. Which is better is open to discussion.

What maximum deviations are you using here?  District 6 looks like it's nearly 4K off.  And Saginaw/Bay City is still one CSA.  (And you still have that traveling chop in CD-10, of course. )

[traininthedistance]

Here is a revised Detroit area that resolves the issue of the traveling chop in MI-10:



I've come to the conclusion that the portion of MI-12 in Macomb is in fact worth it on the grounds that anything that retreats from there would force MI-9 to either take on a muni chop or go above my usual population tolerance (or, I didn't actually test this, go into the Grosse Pointes, which is no better on county chop grounds), and these districts are IMO more compact than the other alternatives being proffered as it is.  So it stays.

I have changed nothing outstate; the whole-county 1 and 8, and the almost perfectly equal whole-county group of 2 and 3, are I think obviously superior to the other options I've seen in this thread.  Though in general I would take Muon's non-Detroit areas over Torie's, as they do a better job of keeping MSAs and CSAs in sensible groupings.  (Even if they probably have deviations higher than I would draw myself).

[traininthedistance]

Interesting point traininthedistance about the traveling chop of MI-10. I am not sure that it applies, given the Macomb portion is just a fill in of a county with a whole CD in it. If it is illegal (it should not be in this instance), it can be fixed by MI-10 taking all of Lapeer, and losing Huron and a bit of Sanilac, making MI-05 more erose of course.

Yes, I followed the 0.5% rule for the micro-chops.



Nice try on getting rid of the traveling CD, but unfortunately you have an extra chop into Macomb, so your map is still illegal. I also see that you have a chop of MI-05 into Oakland. (Under Michigan law, beyond good redistricting principles, you must minimize chops.) But yes, if my fill in traveling chop through Macomb is illegal (if it is not, Lapeer can remain chopped, because you then get access to Oakland trough Macomb County), the way to get rid of the issue is having MI-10 take all of Lapeer, as you did.

You also made MI-10 more erose in Oakland to Dem up MI-11. Naughty! Ditto in tandem with that as to MI-11.   That dog just isn't going to hunt.

You have a lot of nerve calling other people "naughty" when you continue to keep the blatant gerry move of sending the Lansing district into Livingston County, I gotta say.

Anyway, if I used your more lenient population tolerance, I could cut out a chop or two, but with the population tolerance I have been working with, what I have is simply the minimum number of total chops (both county and muni).  Perhaps I will try switching to 0.5%, and seeing what happens, for the sake of argument.

[traininthedistance]

Torie- It looks to me like your revised CD-1 has a deviation of +5,578 (outside the tolerance), rather than the 3,324 your screenshot says.  Perhaps you have some precincts off?

And, clearly, putting Livingston in with Flint was not my first choice (I'm hoping that increased tolerances will let me rectify that).  By all rights it obviously ought to be in a district with outer Oakland and outer Macomb.

[traininthedistance]

Muon2 said Bay City and Saginaw are separate CSA's.

They are separate MSAs, but they are indeed a CSA together.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Combined_statistical_areas_of_the_United_States_and_Puerto_Rico.gif

[traininthedistance]

Michigan, Mark 3, shifting to a 0.5% population deviance (all districts are less than 3,000, though) rather than 1K.



1 and 4 are whole-county now (and actually remain within the old 1K deviance); 2 and 3 continue to cover the Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland CSA (though with slightly higher deviance); 6/7/8 are also a whole-county grouping separate from the Detroit area.  Not quite perfect: Ann Arbor is in the CSA, and Owosso is put here rather than in Lansing's CSA, but overall a pretty solid effort at keeping the metros cogent I think.  2/3/6/7/8 could presumably be shuffled around a little to increase compactness at the expense of metro contiguity, if one so desired.

The Detroit area:



The VRA districts have to get a little uglier if 12 is not allowed to go into Macomb, c'est la vie.  But this arrangement saves two chops, by keeping 14 strictly to Monroe and the white parts of Wayne, as well as the obvious retreat of 12 from Macomb.  12 is 53.8% by VAP, 13 is 51.8%.

And, of course, no munis are split except Detroit.  Booyah.

[traininthedistance]

I bet dollars to donuts I can make your map less erose Muon2. Please send me the data file.

Excellent map from a chop standpoint traininthedistance. It seems to have one less than mine, due to your finding the county combo around Detroit from St. Clair to Shiawasee to Monroe, that does not need to chop out and is self contained (you must have been excited when you discovered that one for your Dem gerrymander ). Of course Michigan law does not give credit for micro-chops, which complicates things. For Michigan law purposes, you must count micro-chops.  I think it loses to mine from an erosity standpoint, but perhaps not by a huge margin (I suspect my map particularly is superior from an erosity standpoint if Michigan law does not consider the chopping of Lapeer a traveling chop). You still have two muni chops in Wayne however. You chopped Westland as well as Detroit, so from that standpoint your map is still illegal.  

I would also revise and improve your map score out of the box by having your magenta CD run south of Waterford, rather than east to the Macomb county line, with the lime CD then going north along the Macomb county line to the Lapeer County line. Yes, I know, you wanted to make MI-11 more Dem. I understand.  You made the magenta CD into a Pub sinkhole (even though Pontiac is in it) - very creative indeed. I also like the way you get Livonia, Northfield, and the township to the west of Northfield out of MI-14 to keep it from getting too Pub (that tan CD is over 50% BVAP right?). Most excellent. I admire your cunning.

Since that county combo is very nearly coterminous with the Detroit-Warren-Flint CSA (merely subbing in the Owosso micro for the Ann Arbor metro), I think that using it is merely a hallmark of good governance, that I'm sure everyone committed to fair, sensible districts could get behind.

I have not chopped Westland at all; the part of 14 that you seem to think is Westland is in fact the separate municipality of Garden City.  Nice try.  Putting Livonia in MI-13 is no more dastardly than putting just-about-as-white Dearborn in there, as I'm sure you know full well.  Don't try and play innocent and pretend that your maps are 100 percent fair and equitable, mister.

And, yes, 13 is 51.8% black by VAP, just as I said in the post above- better than your maps IIRC.  As for your suggestion about 10 and 11, believe me that I tried it and recognize that it would score better on erosity measures.  This arrangement gave me the lowest deviation without splitting municipalities.

Do the Michigan laws mandate exact population equality for their maps?  If so, all this talk about minimizing chops but counting microchops anyway is a moot point, since just about every district will need to add one anyway- and if not, then depending on their population tolerance it's quite likely also a moot point, since you could just roll with the map as is.  I'm on to your lawyerly tricks.

I need to put this down for a while, but will come back later and see what's possible in the 2/3/6/7/8 area in terms of cutting erosity at the expense of metro contiguity.  I suspect the best result with that in mind will be virtually identical to Muon's map.

EDIT:  I see you edited your post to say that I chopped Dearborn Heights instead of Westland... yeah, that just ain't true.  The entirety of Dearborn Heights is in 14.

[traininthedistance]

I meant Dearborn Heights, not Westland, and corrected my post above (I see now that you say that Dearborn Heights is not chopped either - and I accept that now - I see how you did that, but it does help to put up mini lines for zoom maps sometimes). I think Michigan law probably does require exact populations. We are doing two things at once here, which confuses matters. Minimizing population deviations at the cost of substantially more erosity does not appeal to me. You should be able to get something pretty exact as to population equality with one muni chop in Oakland that reduces erosity. Livonia/Northville is much more Pub than Dearborn. I don't however begrudge at all your doing your best to get a high scoring map that is most favorable to the Dems. I was not trying to do that with my map for the Pubs at all, but I know you don't believe me on that one no matter what I say, so I will leave it at that. Have a nice day traininthedistance.

The object lesson of all of this, is that it underscores the importance of both parties having some veto power over high scoring maps, so there is not a map that screws one party. My suggestion was that you generate a set of high scoring maps, say 5 of them, and each party can veto two of them.

You are quite right about putting up town/city lines, I usually remember to do so on zooms and should have done so this time.  Mea culpa.

Exact equality does complicate things, as it ensures that efforts to keep county and muni chops to a minimum using DRA are basically for naught.  That being said, just for academic interest, here is a map that (given the 0.5% max deviation) reduces county chops from my last effort by one, and retains my no-splits-except-for Detroit rule.  I believe that, if one hews to said deviation, and assumes that the VRA requires one of the Detroit districts to go into Southfield, this map has the absolute minimum number of county chops possible, and should score well on the erosity front.





The chops are reduced by making 6 and 7 whole counties; 6 was shamelessly taken from muon's map and 7 from my first one.  The Ann Arbor district then becomes part of the Detroit conglomeration, and various ripple effects ensue.  In general, the ripple effects are not so great: deviations are generally higher, 4 is uglier (obviously if water area could be taken into account it would be rather pretty), Holland (and the Grand Rapids CSA) is now split, albeit along county lines, etc.  A couple things are better: in particular, the Lansing district, which is more compact and only 26 people away from perfect equality, is the main attraction here.  

As for partisan considerations, I am actually not trying to create a maximally-Dem map here: if I were, the Grand Rapids area would be drawn significantly differently for starters.  You are of course welcome to disbelieve that.  I will admit that, to a certain extent, I was motivated to disprove this particular howler:

Given who is in office, the Pubs picked up one seat for their gerrymandering efforts (MI-07 - the Pub gerrymander was all about containing Ann Arbor as it turned out).

But that's as far as it goes.  I do honestly think that just about any fair map would have Dem-leaning districts based around Ann Arbor (7), Lansing (, and probably inner Oakland County (11).  An actual Dem gerry would then also try to squeeze out something from 2 and 6, which I was unwilling to do here.  I do accept that different lines could be drawn within Wayne such that 14 might become competitive.  

[traininthedistance]

Here's a question for traininthedistance, Torie, and others. train likes to avoid muni chops. So here's a variation of my above map that eliminates 2 muni chops in Oakland. The price is a county chop in Lapeer and increased erosity in CD 11 by elongation. Which should be preferred if either?

To be honest, I'm having a hard time getting past the extra county chop into Wayne to grab the Grosse Pointes here.  That strikes me as a blatant no-go.

In general, my particular set of priorities (which are obviously not the same as Torie's) are that conserving muni chops is more important than county chops within the same metro area or erosity, though this is not absolute.

[traininthedistance]

Nicer map Muon 2 - much nicer. Did you minimize the chops, micro or otherwise (I didn't count them)? Are all those little chops micro? Your map still looks a bit more erose than mine, but this time probably by not all that much. If all those chops are micro, I think in both our respective universes, we would agree that your map is superior to mine if that is the case (you have enough micros to make up for a lower erosity score).

Oh, somehow you should also get bonus points for all those competitive CD's as well. In my universe, competitive CD's are the cat's meow.

Muon's map has at least one macro chop that can be (and needs to be) eliminated, where 10 goes into Wayne to grab the Grosse Pointes.  It looks like getting rid of that would leave his map with the same number of macrochops as mine, with 5 and 9's macro incursions into Oakland acting as equivalent to 10's incursions to Oakland and Genessee on my map; the rest look micro.  Of course, 5's two disconnected prongs into Oakland are also a (minor) strike against it; I don't care that much but I know some folks do.  Our maps are substantially identical outside of the Detroit area at this point, modulo a few relatively insignificant choices in the 2/3/8 area (for which I still slightly prefer mine on the grounds that 8 is virtually perfect equality and 3 does a better job lining up with the Grand Rapids MSA).

I don't know that Muon's lack of an all-Macomb district (when such a thing is eminently possible) technically makes a difference with Michigan law, but it's also a factor to consider here.

I am beginning to suspect that, if we were specifically trying to seek out a compromise among these competing proposals, the ideal "good government" option would take my lines north of 8 Mile, and Muon's lines Downriver.  However, in a counterfactual universe where the Michigan pols had split control and were sorting through these maps, they'd probably switch it because of where the incumbents are.

[traininthedistance]

If Muon2's map has extra chops, macro or micro, his map is in trouble under Michigan law. As I said before, we are doing two things at once here. I don't mind an extra county chop if it is more than compensated by other benefits, mostly by reducing erosity, or say eliminating 3 muni chops, and so forth. But Michigan law precludes that.

In terms of Michigan law, if we assume that the microchops would be massaged to perfect equality using tools more precise than DRA later on (and if we assume that doing so negates the necessity of 5's two prongs into Oakland), then Muon's map would have to put the Grosse Pointes back in 14, adjust other things as necessary to account for that, and then throw in the tiniest of microchops to get into 1/4 up north.

My map would, obviously, just have to add in an equivalent series of microchops.

[traininthedistance]

If Muon2's map has extra chops, macro or micro, his map is in trouble under Michigan law. As I said before, we are doing two things at once here. I don't mind an extra county chop if it is more than compensated by other benefits, mostly by reducing erosity, or say eliminating 3 muni chops, and so forth. But Michigan law precludes that.

In terms of Michigan law, if we assume that the microchops would be massaged to perfect equality using tools more precise than DRA later on (and if we assume that doing so negates the necessity of 5's two prongs into Oakland), then Muon's map would have to put the Grosse Pointes back in 14, adjust other things as necessary to account for that, and then throw in the tiniest of microchops to get into 1/4 up north.

My map would, obviously, just have to add in an equivalent series of microchops.

Last night my task was to factor in my corrected understanding of cities vs villages. I also used that to reduce outstate chops beyond the micro size to just one in Ottawa. I'm now looking at the Grosse Point question, but I don't want to trade a fix there for the chop of Genesee (or other northern county) that train has in his map.

The macro chop counts are the same right now for our maps. Counting the number of districts in a county over one and ignoring microchops, I have 1 in Ottawa, 1 in Macomb, 3 in Oakland, and 3 in Wayne for 8. train has 1 in Kent, 1 in Monroe, 1 in Genesee, 1 in Macomb, 2 in Oakland, and 2 in Wayne, also a total of 8.

And yes, I expect that exact equality in a plan like mine is achieved by expanding or contracting the microchops as needed.

Right, I forgot about my Monroe macrochop- which is not that large; it may be possible to massage the deviations enough to eliminate it, which would get us to 7 (certainly the lowest possible).  I'll take a look, and add in microchops as appropriate to my map.

[traininthedistance]

Ah, now I see the point of Muon's arrangement in Grand Rapids & Lansing- it better facilitates the chain of microchops one needs to approximate perfect equality while steering clear of macrochops.

Adopting muon's plan over there makes it easy for me to convert the Monroe portion of CD-7 to a microchop (since those districts were a wee bit overpopulated as it is), which gets us down to a mere 7 macrochops, which I expect to be the lower bound.  

Here's the Detroit area:



If one splits one municipality between 5 and 9 (keeping in mind that munis will need to be split for perfect equality anyway), the map has a maximum deviation of 820.  Without that precinct in New Haven (or some other town in Macomb; doesn't matter all that much), 5 and 9 would be each about 2.5K off from equality, and everywhere else it would be 820 or less.

Outstate is identical to Muon's map now, no point in showing it.  If one really makes zero differentiation between micro and marco chops, I may be tempted to return to my old Lansing district, though again it's not much of a difference.  Either way, this is now the minimum possible number of chops (with the caveat that a micro-micro chop would still be necessary to get into 1/4)

[traininthedistance]

Last night my task was to factor in my corrected understanding of cities vs villages. I also used that to reduce outstate chops beyond the micro size to just one in Ottawa. I'm now looking at the Grosse Point question, but I don't want to trade a fix there for the chop of Genesee (or other northern county) that train has in his map.

I think the real trade-off here is whether you chop a northern county, or whether you decline to make an all-Macomb district when that county's population is more than large enough to support such a thing.  The Grosse Pointes are just an extra chop to be eliminated, no matter what.

"(with the caveat that a micro-micro chop would still be necessary to get into 1/4)"

What does the above mean?

Even with the microchops on Muon's and my map as it is, 1 and 4 are only microchopped with each other, but together are still about 100 persons over exact equality.  So an extra, unshown, microchop of particularly small size must be added.

[traininthedistance]

Last night my task was to factor in my corrected understanding of cities vs villages. I also used that to reduce outstate chops beyond the micro size to just one in Ottawa. I'm now looking at the Grosse Point question, but I don't want to trade a fix there for the chop of Genesee (or other northern county) that train has in his map.

I think the real trade-off here is whether you chop a northern county, or whether you decline to make an all-Macomb district when that county's population is more than large enough to support such a thing.  The Grosse Pointes are just an extra chop to be eliminated, no matter what.

"(with the caveat that a micro-micro chop would still be necessary to get into 1/4)"

What does the above mean?

Even with the microchops on Muon's and my map as it is, 1 and 4 are only microchopped with each other, but together are still about 100 persons over exact equality.  So an extra, unshown, microchop of particularly small size must be added.

Thanks. I wonder if a twist can be made to Muon2's map counterclockwise, so that MI-09 gets shoved out of Wayne, and more into Oakland, getting rid of the micro-chops in Oakland, and only generating micro-chops going beyond Oakland, into Genesee or Livingston or whatever. In other words, can a macro chop be eliminated in Wayne without creating another macro-chop elsewhere?  If not, I don't see a problem with Muon2's little thrust into Wayne myself.

Well, my revised map now has one fewer macrochop (and one fewer chop total) than Muon's, so his map simply does not meet the legal standard.  Oh, and it's actually CD-10 that goes into Wayne, and oh, I just noticed, does so by way of a traveling chop.  That's multiple strikes right there- more chops than necessary, and a traveling one at that.  

[traininthedistance]

Last night my task was to factor in my corrected understanding of cities vs villages. I also used that to reduce outstate chops beyond the micro size to just one in Ottawa. I'm now looking at the Grosse Point question, but I don't want to trade a fix there for the chop of Genesee (or other northern county) that train has in his map.

I think the real trade-off here is whether you chop a northern county, or whether you decline to make an all-Macomb district when that county's population is more than large enough to support such a thing.  The Grosse Pointes are just an extra chop to be eliminated, no matter what.

"(with the caveat that a micro-micro chop would still be necessary to get into 1/4)"

What does the above mean?

Even with the microchops on Muon's and my map as it is, 1 and 4 are only microchopped with each other, but together are still about 100 persons over exact equality.  So an extra, unshown, microchop of particularly small size must be added.

Though as I noted before, MI could revisit its statute to comport with modern SCOTUS. Then things like microchops between regions of low deviation (such as 1 and 4) would be unnecessary.

Yeah, 1 and 4 are so close to equality, and there is enough inevitable error in any Census count, that I would support such a thing.  I'm not sure exactly how much maximum leeway I'd support, but it would definitely fall within the range of at least 100 people and no more than 1 percent.

[traininthedistance]

Yes, unlike the Lapeer chop issue, where the traveling chop through Macomb into Oakland was just to fill in a county with a whole CD in it, Muon's traveling through Macomb is indeed clearly an illegal traveling chop. So let's just view Muon2's map as an ex Michigan law effort.

The game under Michigan law is just to to make sure that you have two one chop CD's, with the balance being two chop CD's. Absent incredible luck with a perfect a perfect population number within a group of counties, that is the best one can do for chops, where there is no distinction between micro chops and macro chops. Arguably you can have an extra chop in the Detroit area to comport with the VRA, even though it might be possible to offset that VRA impelled chop through some plan, but I believe the current map has one extra chop that way, and nobody complained.

Well, the best you can theoretically do is one all-Macomb district, one all-Oakland district, two all-Wayne districts, and then remainder following the rule you laid out above.  The best you can actually do, of course, is have one of the Wayne districts go into Oakland, for VRA purposes.

[traininthedistance]

This is a case where I would prefer a muni chop (even if macro) in lieu of that patchwork of rather erose colors in Oakland County, to smooth out the lines. As to partisan impacts, those should be ignored, with a view that procedurally both parties will have some veto power over lopsided maps from a partisan standpoint, because there will be more than one high scoring map to choose from.

This Board has been very useful I think. It has become clear to me that it is just impossible to draw appropriate maps using COI criteria, because partisanship is just too ingrained in all of us, and sometimes we skew without even knowing it, because we shut out options mentally that are favorable to the other party. It is also helpful in slowly coming to some perception of just what the appropriate balancing tests should be, using examples of map, after map, after map.

So it might be fun to try to generate five maps with the highest scores that our minds can design (that have more than a de-minimus variation from each other, and see where one would end up, if the four that favor each party the most are tossed.

As much as I prefer keeping munis whole, in a specifically Michigan context I would certainly be fine with a macro muni chop in Oakland if it significantly reduced erosity.  This is because a microchop is necessary anyway for perfect equality, so we're not actually saving any chops.  If we were drawing maps for a state that specifically allowed a bit of wiggle room, I would take a good deal more erosity to eliminate muni chops however.

I think that even if one were to adopt your "propose five maps, each party vetoes two" idea, this sort of preliminary back-and-forth is an essential thing to have.  It raises everyone's game, and the good ideas can be mixed and matched.

[traininthedistance]

To compare maps it's a useful exercise to push the county chops as low as possible. The theoretical chop minimum is equal to the number of districts that can be completely nested in a county. That is equal to 4 for MI. I couldn't get it to 4, but I could get it down to 5 with use of microchops. The range pushes out to 6599 and all CDs are with 0.5%. I would note that I could get rid of all the microchops but the one from CD 7 into Ingham by adding a chop that puts Holly twp in Oakland into CD 5. There is also one chop into Westland in Wayne, but it could be eliminated and a microchop of Rockwood used instead (I saw it after I printed the map).

One other issue that arises in the exercise is the minimum BVAP for the VRA. The SCOTUS standard for 50% only applies to the question of whether there is sufficient population to require that there is a district that can elect a candidate of the minority's choice. It doesn't apply to the district itself, and Dems in IL were successful in arguing that percentages in the upper 40% range where the white population was overwhelmingly Dem was sufficient to elect a candidate of choice for blacks. It didn't go to SCOTUS but it did pass the lower courts. The OH competition after consultation with the NAACP came to the same conclusion and allowed a CD of as low as 47% BVAP in Cuyahoga. I'm going to use their argument here and the CDs have 50.2% and 49.2% BVAP and I feel confident that statistical analysis of voting would conclude that blacks could elect candidates of choice in both CDs.

I think I agree with the NCAAP here that a strict 50% threshold should not be necessary in urban areas, so if we can use that info to cut down on chops then that is all to the good.   (I think that, closer to home, a more relaxed standard ought to have been applied to Gregory Meeks' district to keep it all within Queens, but I digress.) 

My main objection to this map, of course, is the manner in which each of the three counties of the Lansing MSA is put in a different district (and that of course the non-Detroit metro macrochop cuts to the heart of the Lansing MSA).  I understand if that might score highest on a strict algorithm basis, but I would pretty strongly want to see an actual Lansing-area district in any good-government map.

I think my eyes are bleeding from too much Michigan right now, and I need to take a break, so I'm not sure if a counter-proposal is immediately forthcoming from these quarters.  Maybe in a day or two, we'll see.

[traininthedistance]

The only neutral definition of the urban area or MSA comes from the Census. Even with that defined, there are a number of ways to judge whether a split is significant or incidental. I agree that there should be consideration for regions that maintain metro areas, but given the subjective component, I think this is better left as a consideration for the commission selecting from the best maps.

You can't see the county boundary within an urban area since there is continuous development.  A cut along a county boundary in such an area is indistinguishable from a county chop.

Perhaps not from a CoI perspective, but the county boundary is very clear electorally. Counties are fundamental political and electoral units. They're one of the primary identifiers used by members of the public. Few voters don't know what county they live in. I'd far rather preserve the county line than a changing urban area boundary.

I grew up pretty near the boundary of Essex and Passaic counties (specifically, in Bloomfield), and we would cross that line for shopping, errands, and such all the time, whereas traveling to west or south Essex was a rare thing.  We identified with Clifton and Little Falls and Passaic way more than we identified with Fairfield or Millburn or Irvington.  

Mind you, in New Jersey there is county government (unlike in New England, where it is pretty much literally meaningless), but the entire state is covered in incorporated municipalities, even if they're called "townships".  My understanding is that, in the Midwest, there are some townships that may not have all the powers of incorporated places, but even the unincorporated twps. have some level of local governement and local identification, so in urbanized areas I'd rather defer to them than county lines.  Obviously this does not hold in the South and West.

I agree with jimrtex here, urbanized areas and metro boundaries should in fact take precedence over a strict county-based accounting of things, and we should find a way to define that objectively if necessary.  Though obviously if you can conserve county boundaries then it's a bonus, and conservation of counties is a high priority in rural areas.

[traininthedistance]

My concept is simple: Groups of counties that share urbanized area(s), and the delineation is straightforward using census data.

Metropolitan Statistical Areas based on commuting patterns are more problematic.   The threshold for the amount of commuting is arbitrary.  Is a county with 24% commuting more integrated than a county with 26% commuting?  As a suburban area becomes more developed, the number of commuters may increase, but the percentage decrease.  First there are workers to build the homes, and then grocery stores and malls, dentists, and auto dealers.   And then officer parks.  Fewer jobs are in manufacturing and the CBD.

In 2000, the Michigan planning authorities noted that Grand Rapids could be anywhere from a 1-county to a 7-county metropolitan area based on small percentage shifts in commuting.  The outlying counties shifted between 2000 and 2010.

Commuting data is based on the American Community Survey (ACS), so there is possibility of sampling error.  There may also be response error.  Workers may not know their county of employment.  Question 30 of the ACS questionaire is quite elaborate as it seeks the information in multiple ways, so that the census bureau can determine where employment occurred.  A worker may work at multiple job sites during any week, and may have been employed in a different state or even country than where they resided.

Inclusion of outlying counties may be useful for a subjective COI analysis, but not for use as part of a rule set.

I understand your rationale for using urbanized areas instead of MSAs. However, I'm not sure I follow the application in the linking example that I used above. The separation of Benton Harbor-St Joseph UA from the South Bend UA is substantial compared to that between the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek UAs. The South Bend portion in Berrien seems quite small, so I can't follow why BH-SB is linked when KZ-BC is not.

Also if counties are the coarse building block, which I think they should be, then I would need something that clearly maps the UAs and their fractional population into counties. I haven't found that list on the Census site yet. I used MSAs in my earlier comments in large part because of their clear delineation by county.

Yeah, this is roughly my thinking.  I'd rather go with urbanized areas, since UAs map better on to what we usually think of as "metro areas" given the weirdness that sometimes occurs with commuting patterns in outlying counties/metro counties with large rural areas or parts that overlap into multiple MSAs.  But the tricky part is how do we define that, given that people seem to want to use counties as the sine qua non building blocks of districts, it's just easier to go with MSAs.  My instinct is to say that chopping off outlying counties from an MSA is better than chopping through the core, and that if you're chopping/microchopping an MSA county, slicing off a small rural bit and keeping the built-up area in the metro district should be preferred.  And of course it would be good to keep outlying counties in if it doesn't make other things a lot worse.  The question is, how do we create usable rules that recognize this?