New England redistricting using towns and NECTAs.

[Sol]

What about this?

[Sol]

With some initial experimentation, I think eight is the minimum number of chops.

[Sol]

For comparison I'll start with Sol's recent offering. It's very compact, but it chops Bridgeport between 3 CDs, New Haven in 2, Waterbury in 2, Hartford in 3, and Springfield in 2. That's a total of 12 chops. The average deviation is 446.8, which translates to an inequality of 14. I'll try to get a connection map soon to calculate erosity. In the meantime, how well can one draw the CDs while minimizing NECTA chops and maintaining compactness?

It just occurred to me that you're basically de facto double-counting the first chop in any region, by this accounting.  There are three districts in the Bridgeport NECTA, but wouldn't that only be two chops?  If I'm reading your count right, it seems that a map that triple-chopped one region would score better than one which double-chopped two regions, despite the fact that in both cases there are two intrusions on regional boundaries.  I suppose it's possible that this choice is deliberate, but I can't recall where exactly the case for that was made.  (Which I guess might be on me, since I did check out of these discussions for a while.)

Anyway, here is a plan that, I'm pretty sure no matter how you count, is chop-minimizing with regards to NECTAs:



The Bridgeport NECTA is split between 4 (which is all-Bridgeport) and 5; Hartford is split between 1 (which is all-Hartford), 2, 3, and 5.  It is not strictly better than Sol's plan, however, since the average deviation is 448.4, just barely higher (thanks to constraints in Fairfield County), and while most districts are very compact... 2 is not.

...

EDIT: I lied, by fiddling with the boundary between 4 and 5 within the Bridgeport NECTA I was able to get inequality to plummet.  Average deviation is now only 223.2.  The cost is, I would assume, slightly higher erosity for 4, but I think this revised map now leads on two of the three factors.

I like that a lot, Train!

[Sol]

Those maps look very reasonable, IMO. I prefer option 1 very strongly- a CD-4 on the latter map is quite ugly.

What do the racial stats on CD-7 look like?

[Sol]

The weird link from Worcester to Fall River is probably a matter of tradition rather than sense.

Anyway, I like the first map more also because the 8th appears to be a MetroWest district, which I get the sense is a good CoI. Also, I believe Boston is beginning to sprawl into the Worcester area, so that makes sense.

Putting Quincy in with the 9th sounds good, even if it does screw up Brockton.

Perhaps the best way to elucidate it would be to poll Massachusetts Atlasians who have been less involved with this NECTA/UCC discussion and see which they prefer.

[Sol]

Is there an equivalent of UCCs for NECTAs?