Poll re 2020 Ohio CD Map

[jimrtex]

I think in the case of Bexley and Whitehall you could also be getting into VRA problems by not including them in a Columbus district.  They are much whiter than the surrounding areas of Columbus.  It would not be surprising to find that is part of their existing in the first place.   So end up either with discontiguous white spots, or corridors through black areas to link them to the outer suburbs.

I note that Torie mentioned keeping east Columbus together for black neighborhood integrity, but by that token Reynoldsburg should be in the CD as well. Since there is no VRA district possible in that area, I would shy away from that justification, unless it is applied consistently to the areas both in and adjacent to the city.

Would it be possible to make a case under Section based on reducing minority influence?  If you were trying to create a district that was as Black as possible, it might include Whitehall, where there has been some breakdown of the white island status.

An interesting problem in Ohio is how to hand the cities which don't have township status, such as Gahanna, Reynoldsburg, or Grove City.   I treated them as essentially unincorporated, but that is in part due to lack of estimate data.

[Torie]

Michigan has "villages," as they in contradistinction to incorporated cities, under Michigan law can be chopped to bits. They clearly should be subject to chopping if the alternative is to chop incorporated municipalities or if it reduces erosity to a substantial extent (unlikely as to the latter since in most instances unincorporated villages or post office addresses, or whatever they are, tend in most instances  to  be small in geographic area).

[Sbane]

Not satisfied yet, and going for more eh?  Greedy!

Speaking of greedy, have you taken a look at your CD-10?

[Torie]

Not satisfied yet, and going for more eh?  Greedy!

Speaking of greedy, have you taken a look at your CD-10?

And where is your map? Again this is an object lesson in just letting the black box do it. Everyone's motives are questioned, no matter how one tries in good faith, and the fact is, it is hard with some discretion, to see alternatives that screw your side. That is why I have yet to see a map by someone claiming to be non partisan, that benefits the other team. Well Muon2 is on his own trip to be fair. The rest of us are susceptible to being hacks. Melding his ideas with common sense, and what will sell in the public square as the end product, seems to me to have potential. That is why I am focusing on erosity - and it's like porn - you know it when you see it.

[Sbane]

Not satisfied yet, and going for more eh?  Greedy!

Speaking of greedy, have you taken a look at your CD-10?

And where is your map? Again this is an object lesson in just letting the black box do it. Everyone's motives are questioned, no matter how one tries in good faith, and the fact is, it is hard with some discretion, to see alternatives that screw your side. That is why I have yet to see a map by someone claiming to be non partisan, that benefits the other team. Well Muon2 is on his own trip to be fair. The rest of us are susceptible to being hacks. Melding his ideas with common sense, and what will sell in the public square as the end product, seems to me to have potential. That is why I am focusing on erosity - and it's like porn - you know it when you see it.

How is your CD-10 not erose?

[Sbane]

This is what I drew, and it is based off the map Jimrtex drew in the other thread. The 1st district which is composed of rural and small towns is the key. This allows you to draw compact districts around metro areas. Communities of interest can be manipulated for partisan interests, but keeping metro areas together is just common sense and I don't see how it is controversial. In my map you have a district that takes in the western suburbs of Cleveland, and another district that takes in the eastern suburbs and the southern suburbs (or northern suburbs of Akron, I bet many commute to both cities in those areas). Then you have a Akron and Canton based district. The Youngstown district takes in a couple of Appalachian counties along the Ohio river, which isn't ideal, but close enough to that area that I think it works. And lastly, it ends up in a very nice and tidy district taking in Toledo and other industrial type small cities along lake Erie. I think this is the best possible map for northern Ohio.

[muon2]

Well the problem is that we all try to cover our partisan motivations with little arguments that favor our side. It's just unavoidable. So a black box solution, with some flexibility to allow folks to agree on something they both think is better, even if the black box does not, seems the way to go.  And metro areas should be defined by density data, not the land included by the census bureau, since that tends to be far too crude, and take in a lot of empty land, or be arbitrary in their separation. Obviously the VRA needs to be adhered to, although tougher is this business about worrying about minority percentages even if the VRA in a given instance does not. Maybe the geography and anti chop rules serve as an adequate proxy there in most instances.

Anyway, back to the anti-erosity game, your suggested revision improved the erosity of OH-08, but makes that of OH-09 worse. I am trying to use in my mind the outside of an exact square approach, with the distance outside it in a CD (with such distance weighted as a ratio of the size of the square, so you don't have a bigger CD's ipso factor deemed more erose than smaller ones) weighted negatively on some exponential basis, as a function of the distance outside the square of the percentage of land area in the CD that lies outside the square. Anyway, in my mind, using that metric, I think your revision might get a slightly lower score, as the OH-09 square box either has to move west, or have all of the Fulton jut to the west deemed outside the square.

Where's muon2?

I was just taking a long drive.

Anyway, as we get going let's talk about erosity for the different Toledo plans. The one above has two split counties and each chop counts as a new county for the purposes of determining connectivity. Connections exist when there is a path of state highways that connects from the node of on county to the other without passing through another county (or chop). A node is defined as the most populous municipality in an urban area in the county, or the county seat if there is no urban area, or the most populous census defined area in the chop. When two counties or chops are connected they form a link. The sum of all cut links is the erosity of the map.

District erosity counts the number of cut links that separate that district from other districts and gives a total twice the number for the entire plan. The above Toledo district has 10 cut links: E Fulton-W Fulton, E Fulton-Henry, Lucas-Henry, Wood-Henry, Wood-Hancock, Wood-Seneca, Sandusky-Seneca, Sandusky-Huron, Erie-Huron, W-Lorain-E Lorain. The earlier Torie version below also has an erosity of 10, so the map maker is free to choose between them.

That rotation will make OH-08 too erose. As OH-09 sucks up more of Wood County, and then some, OH-08 has nowhere to go to pick up its lost population, without getting substantially more erose, and wandering. As you can see, OH-04 is kind of boxed in between OH-08 and the Dayton and Columbus and Cinci metro areas, so it can't be pushed at all, without substantial map degradation.) Both OH-04 and OH-08, but particularly OH-08, were hell to draw. Again, I think erosity reduction along with chop minimization (with the possible exception as to chops of keeping metro areas together, to which I also give a high priority), is job one. I think it is what the public expects, and should have a right to expect.

Anyway, I did the best I could to get OH-09 out of Lorain County, and got about half of its population out, before running into a wall, as described above.

Yes, the map is much better than earlier drafts of mine. Thanks.

Well, I take that back in part. Ashland County is potentially playable. Below is another option, which makes OH-09 less erose, but OH-10, and OH-08 in particular (and OH-08 looks kind of nasty now with that choke point it has by virtue of being kicked out of Wood County), more erose. Close call. There should be some sort of overall erosity point system which dictates which version of the map is deemed superior.

You could always push the Toledo district further west: Fulton County is part of the Toledo metro.  I think further rotation is possible and arguably desirable, up to and including putting Sandusky in CD-10.  I would not necessarily be opposed to having Sandusky in any of those three districts, actually; like Ashtabula it is its own thing according to the Census Bureau and you put it where you need extra population.

Obviously I'd like to see Lorain County made whole, and would also consider Holmes (and to a lesser extent Wayne) to be a better cultural fit in 8.  But even just giving CD-9 Fulton in exchange for that portion of Seneca and maybe some of Wood ought to be an improvement on the erosity front.

Now let me consider Sbanes offering below. I find no link from Huron or S Wood to N Seneca, But it does add a cut link from Erie to S Lorain so that gives it an erosity of 9. That puts it equal to my version with no county splits which also has an erosity of 9.

Edit: As an aside, Sbane's plan makes the link from Wood to Seneca disappear. That probably should be disallowed, otherwise one can gerrymander lines to sever a key highway needed to establish a path. If that is disallowed then The S Wood-N Seneca link would remain as cut and his district erosity would be 10.

[Torie]

Using my erosity rules rather than Muon2's, which uses links, while I use geography and the perfect square rule (I think my rule is better for a state like Ohio, with few natural barriers), I think this map wins going away. Anyone disagree?  I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Another advantage is that OH-09 has almost a perfect population, only off by about 2K, so it fits within the microchop rule, and loses a chop. That gives the map some bonus points.

I guess perhaps the link rule for a state like Ohio would practically only apply when using cross chops the way sbane did. Presumably state highways link all whole counties where there is substantial contiguity between them. Well there is that Portage choke point for OH-15 in my map, but I see in checking that highway 306 goes south through the OH-15 Portage bite, connecting to highway 82 going west. Whew!

Is the game over?

Oh, Mike, your idea that you can chop in half major cities, like Columbus and Cleveland, just isn't going to sell. You are a politician. You need to think about PR!    Giving preference to minor chops to reach surrounded burbs is however negotiable maybe. Maybe that should be deemed a neutral factor, where each of the two map options has equal points.  Then if my procedure is more or less followed, it is the luck of the draw (unless both parties agree one way or the other).

I accept sbane's point about the eastern Cleveland burbs, if one doesn't care about the black percentage, assuming it does not exacerbate erosity, but the problem is that I don't think it is possible to take them all into OH-14, so if some are in, and some are out, then having straight lines should dictate where the cut goes.  I guess I should check that, and see what it does to erosity. However, trashing the black percentage (as opposed to perhaps a more minor erosion), is also not going to make the rule set salable.

Anyway, below the state map, is one for Cleveland that may get the erosity down to close to a minimum, without chopping the city itself. I guess playing this game that this is the map for Cuyahoga (except that the line between OH-10 and OH-11 now needs to be smoothed out as depicted in the second Cleveland map below (primarily to reduce the erosity of OH-10). Now, I like much better Muon2's idea of putting Geauga in my OH-14.  However, I don't think that would pass the erosity test.

This reduces however the black percentage down to 31% in OH-11, so the black community is going to freak out. It makes it likely that when the seat is open, a white will take it, while at 42% or whatever, a black would have a much better chance of holding it. So we have a practical problem. I am not sure what rule will cleanly address this problem, but it bears pondering. Maybe an overlay of the probably soon to be axed by SCOTUS Section 5 of the VRA needs to be incorporated (a CD needs to elect a candidate of a minority group's choice where that can be done within a community of interest). That might cause a revision to the Cleveland map to the third one below.

[Sbane]

My Cleveland district is 40.6% VAP black. Isn't it the same in your map?

[Torie]

My Cleveland district is 40.6% VAP black. Isn't it the same in your map?

No. I turned off the voting age stats to reduce loading time, but it probably is around 30% black or so.

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[Torie]

Which of these two maps should be preferred?  One is less erose, but the chop into Parma is deeper. It seems to me that slightly more erosity should not get negative points, if it reduces the size of a chop pursuant to some formula. Just another item to think about.



And the erosity rule (subject to you can't chop big cities), dictates a redraw of OH-01 and OH-02, which will make Muon2 happy. The partisan complexion of OH-01 does not change at all, by the way.

[jimrtex]

Michigan has "villages," as they in contradistinction to incorporated cities, under Michigan law can be chopped to bits. They clearly should be subject to chopping if the alternative is to chop incorporated municipalities or if it reduces erosity to a substantial extent (unlikely as to the latter since in most instances unincorporated villages or post office addresses, or whatever they are, tend in most instances  to  be small in geographic area).

Ohio distinguishes municipalities as either cities or villages based on their census population (5000 is the threshold for a city).  After the Secretary of State gets the census report it tells each municipality whether it is a city or village for the next decade.

In creating House districts, municipalities are actually the area to have strongest resistance to chopping.  This is not always apparent since the process of creating districts is presented in the opposite order: (a) Don't chop counties; but if not feasible (b) don't chop townships; but if not feasible (c) don't chop municipalities; but if not feasible (d) don't chop wards.

Ohio is messy because municipalities can cross township and county lines, so that a line follows a county or township boundary chops municipalities.  Municipalities can also have township status, but it is also possible that not all of a municipality has township status. In particular parts that cross county lines, can't since townships never cross county lines.

For redistricting purposes, Ohio should normalize its geography.  Municipalities should always be considered part of a single township and county (the one with the most population).  This would have the effect of extending Franklin County outward to include the tentacles of Columbus, Dublin, and other cities.  Reynoldsburg be within one township.  This would result in proper nesting of counties, townships, and municipalities.

Entities should also be considered self-contiguous, and the definition of a contiguous district changed from an area surrounded by a continuous line, to an aggregate of contiguous areas.

[jimrtex]

This is what I drew, and it is based off the map Jimrtex drew in the other thread. The 1st district which is composed of rural and small towns is the key. This allows you to draw compact districts around metro areas. Communities of interest can be manipulated for partisan interests, but keeping metro areas together is just common sense and I don't see how it is controversial. In my map you have a district that takes in the western suburbs of Cleveland, and another district that takes in the eastern suburbs and the southern suburbs (or northern suburbs of Akron, I bet many commute to both cities in those areas). Then you have a Akron and Canton based district. The Youngstown district takes in a couple of Appalachian counties along the Ohio river, which isn't ideal, but close enough to that area that I think it works. And lastly, it ends up in a very nice and tidy district taking in Toledo and other industrial type small cities along lake Erie. I think this is the best possible map for northern Ohio.

I would have a rule against double spanning, where two or more districts span a county line.  This tends to make the district boundaries at least somewhat parallel to county lines, rather than stringing extended areas together.

So I would reject two districts crossing the Summit-Portage line.  The Akron district would go a bit further north, and the salmon district a bit more of Portage County.  I can't tell sure whether the yellow district extends into Lake County, but I would not permit that either.

A possible consideration is that Ohio shale oil area is centered in Carroll County, but since it has little population, oil field service companies are setting up in places like Canton.

[Torie]

At the very least, a tri-chop counts as an extra chop, and maybe it should count as a chop and a half. I tried very hard to avoid tri-chops in my map. There needs to be a damn good reason to have one, and the only one I can really think of, is to keep metro areas together (intelligently defined metro areas, not necessarily as defined by the census, which tend often to include large tracts of relatively empty land, etc.).

The trick here is to find a formula which balances erosity scores with chop counts. The more I do this, the more I think some sort of balancing test, where both the chop count, and the erosity score, factor into a total score. And I am thinking that if a city can be fully contained in one CD, if part of it is in another CD, while other cities are within its CD that are not surrounded by it, that counts as a chop (i.e., this involves cities, plus surrounded burbs, with more population than a CD). And in choosing which local place to chop, the more population that is within the smaller share of the chop, the more the negative score. So that way, there is a balancing test between not having relatively even chops of higher population places, and limiting erosity. One will simply not get the best map, and the most salable map, without these sorts of balancing tests. Thanks heavens for computers. This could never be done without them.

As to intelligently defined metro areas, if one CD impinges into the metro area, and in doing so chops a county, while a metro CD impinges out, and in doing so chops a county, that should count as a three chops rather than two perhaps.

All of these rules are designed to have a map that looks nice on paper, and also avoids any one locality of relatively substantial population from thinking it really got the shaft. And then add some VRA Section 5 variant, so we don't start putting a slew of minority Congresspersons out of jobs over time. It is essential to avoid that, because otherwise this project will never get traction.

I might add that my map above, as revised now a zillion times, has a lot of potentially swingable CD's. For a state like Ohio, which is relatively closely balanced overall between the parties, that tends I think to be what happens when you focus on keeping the erosity down. In a wave election, the losing party could lose a bunch of CD's.  Only 4 CD's, 2 for each party, will be truly safe, by 2022. And that is good.  Having swingable CD's I strongly suspect, will lead to better public policy formulation in the end. One will more incentive to try to find some accommodation, rather than just stick it to the other side.

[Sbane]

This is what I drew, and it is based off the map Jimrtex drew in the other thread. The 1st district which is composed of rural and small towns is the key. This allows you to draw compact districts around metro areas. Communities of interest can be manipulated for partisan interests, but keeping metro areas together is just common sense and I don't see how it is controversial. In my map you have a district that takes in the western suburbs of Cleveland, and another district that takes in the eastern suburbs and the southern suburbs (or northern suburbs of Akron, I bet many commute to both cities in those areas). Then you have a Akron and Canton based district. The Youngstown district takes in a couple of Appalachian counties along the Ohio river, which isn't ideal, but close enough to that area that I think it works. And lastly, it ends up in a very nice and tidy district taking in Toledo and other industrial type small cities along lake Erie. I think this is the best possible map for northern Ohio.

I would have a rule against double spanning, where two or more districts span a county line.  This tends to make the district boundaries at least somewhat parallel to county lines, rather than stringing extended areas together.

So I would reject two districts crossing the Summit-Portage line.  The Akron district would go a bit further north, and the salmon district a bit more of Portage County.  I can't tell sure whether the yellow district extends into Lake County, but I would not permit that either.

A possible consideration is that Ohio shale oil area is centered in Carroll County, but since it has little population, oil field service companies are setting up in places like Canton.

Yeah, it's probably a good idea to get the purple district out of Portage.

The yellow district does go into lake, but only to pick up a fairly black precinct. I think that district could do without it.

[muon2]

I'm willing to concede keeping Cleveland together, but I prefer to have only one chop into Cuyahoga. Starting with my apportionment region that has Lake, Cuyahoga, Medina, Summit, Wayne, and Holmes (3 CDs) I can get this area map with the least erosity. It maintains a BVAP of 37.5% in CD 15 which isn't far off other plans without extensive community splitting.



If the goal is to fully nest a CD in Cuyahoga with one chop, the minimum muon2 erosity plan is to avoid that CD from touching any other county. An apportionment region with Cuyahoga, Lake and Geauga is just within 1% of the ideal population and has very low erosity. CD 15 is 36.3% BVAP so it isn't so different from the above map.



Do either of these meet with general approval?

[muon2]

I'm not comfortable with all those county splits in search of square districts. Here's my improved plan keeping counties whole while minimizing erosity. All CDs are within 1% of the projected population. I've used the revised Cuyahoga from my previous post with a microchop into Ashtabula. In Franklin I've treated all the suburbs surrounded by Columbus equally and put them in my CD-8 for a very non-erose district.

[muon2]

I think I like Torie's design for Cincinnati better, but that isn't horrible. It looks like you might have split off some of the black areas in northern Hamilton County from the Cincinnati district, though. That's absolutely out of the question and would constitute dilution (not in a VRA sense, of course, but it's definitely worse than splitting counties).

Forest Park could be swapped for the Evendale-Blue Ash piece which would increase erosity. That switch only increases the BVAP from 20.8% to 22.3% so it would be hard to make a antidilution argument for a 1.5% increase.

Seems like a significant difference to me. A 1.5% decrease in BVAP is much more important than a tiny bit of erosity.

Not really. Below 25% the minority population cannot generally control the primary of the majority party, and therefore can't elect a candidate of choice. They can act as an influence in a primary and general election, however so there is a reason to keep much of that influence intact. 1 or 2% isn't going to matter for an influence district.

This issue becomes more interesting in the Cleveland area. A reasonable district of whole munis entirely within Cuyahoga isn't going to top 40% BVAP. With a district at 75%+ Dem there's no guarantee that blacks will be able to elect a candidate of choice in that arrangement since they must control the primary as well as the general election. On the other hand splitting the black population between 2 CDs in the region creates more partisan competitiveness for Dems and provides two districts where the black population would have an influence. In a plan that would otherwise favor the GOP that might be a worthwhile trade to restore some partisan balance.

[Torie]

The first map is too erose. The second one looks good, but it depends what it does to the overall erosity of the map.  However, 37.5% black VAP may be an issue. My OH-11 has 40% black VAP.  I suspect that 40% is probably right around the tipping point where the black voters in a Dem primary fall below 50% for this area (5% of the VAP is Hispanic, and 20% voted for McCain). Black politicians are simply not going to tolerate the black box screwing them out of a seat - particularly if something that looks reasonable will hold it for them.  As a practical matter, as I noted above, there needs to be some sort of variant of Section 5 to the black boxes computer program.

I am looking forward to your comments on my set of rules Mike, and particularly how to measure erosity. I have suggested that you fit a perfect square into the CD in a way that takes up the most area within the CD, and then with respect to the percentage area of the CD outside the square, you weight that area outside by its distance from the edge of the square on some exponential basis.

I  kind of like my locality chop rule, where the higher the population for the smaller  share of the chop, the more of a point deduction the CD gets. What do you think?  That rule will also effectively "solve" my concern about chopping major cities. You can chop them at the margins, but you can't halve them, or anything close to that. That way, you get a rule that comes the closest I think to treating all localities equally (except that I like my extra chop rule, where a locality that can suck up a whole CD, including its surrounded burbs, fails to do so because another CD takes up too high a percentage of it).

I disagree Mike with you idea that the size of a county chop prevails over the metric of reducing erosity. That is not to say that there cannot be some sort of balancing test, so if you can lose a chop because its a micro chop, that gives you positive points, to measure against the negative points from the additional erosity. Putting aside the issue of keeping metro areas together, a smaller number of positive points could be given for smaller county chops, just as with locality chops. But to come up with a map that has considerably more erosity to get the chop avoidance score up solely due to reducing the size of the chop or to bag micro-chops, I think just has the priorities wrong. I don't think that would be the choice of the voters if asked just which emphasis that they prefer. And it will make the end product less salable, and more controversial is my guess.

Anyway in looking at your map (and why can't you guys make pretty maps the way I do? ), I see that you have a deep and nasty chop of Stark, severing the Canton, or Canton-Akron, merto area. That is not good - at all - in my opinion. Putting aside Lorain (a substantial chop in population, but not in area), my nasty chop is Fairfield, but that chop is justified as dividing the part of Fairfield in the metro area from that outside - just as is the case with Warren County, on which we both agree I see now.

I think I now have about 90% of the names of counties in Ohio memorized from their location and shape. At least I have accomplished that much with this exercise, if nothing else.

[Brittain33]

I love this site for threads like this.

[muon2]

The first map is too erose. The second one looks good, but it depends what it does to the overall erosity of the map.  However, 37.5% black VAP may be an issue. My OH-11 has 40% black VAP.  I suspect that 40% is probably right around the tipping point where the black voters in a Dem primary fall below 50% for this area (5% of the VAP is Hispanic, and 20% voted for McCain). Black politicians are simply not going to tolerate the black box screwing them out of a seat - particularly if something that looks reasonable will hold it for them.  As a practical matter, as I noted about, there needs to be some sort of variant of Section 5 to the black boxes computer program.

Using my erosity rules rather than Muon2's, which uses links, while I use geography and the perfect square rule (I think my rule is better for a state like Ohio, with few natural barriers), I think this map wins going away. Anyone disagree?  I don't know why I didn't think of it before. Another advantage is that OH-09 has almost a perfect population, only off by about 2K, so it fits within the microchop rule, and loses a chop. That gives the map some bonus points.

I guess perhaps the link rule for a state like Ohio would practically only apply when using cross chops the way sbane did. Presumably state highways link all whole counties where there is substantial contiguity between them. Well there is that Portage choke point for OH-15 in my map, but I see in checking that highway 306 goes south through the OH-15 Portage bite, connecting to highway 82 going west. Whew!

Is the game over?

Oh, Mike, your idea that you can chop in half major cities, like Columbus and Cleveland, just isn't going to sell. You are a politician. You need to think about PR!    Giving preference to minor chops to reach surrounded burbs is however negotiable maybe. Maybe that should be deemed a neutral factor, where each of the two map options has equal points.  Then if my procedure is more or less followed, it is the luck of the draw (unless both parties agree one way or the other).

I accept sbane's point about the eastern Cleveland burbs, if one doesn't care about the black percentage, assuming it does not exacerbate erosity, but the problem is that I don't think it is possible to take them all into OH-14, so if some are in, and some are out, then having straight lines should dictate where the cut goes.  I guess I should check that, and see what it does to erosity. However, trashing the black percentage (as opposed to perhaps a more minor erosion), is also not going to make the rule set salable.

Anyway, below the state map, is one for Cleveland that may get the erosity down to close to a minimum, without chopping the city itself. I guess playing this game that this is the map for Cuyahoga (except that the line between OH-10 and OH-11 now needs to be smoothed out as depicted in the second Cleveland map below (primarily to reduce the erosity of OH-10). Now, I like much better Muon2's idea of putting Geauga in my OH-14.   However, I don't think that would pass the erosity test.

This reduces however the black percentage down to 31% in OH-11, so the black community is going to freak out. It makes it likely that when the seat is open, a white will take it, while at 42% or whatever, a black would have a much better chance of holding it. So we have a practical problem. I am not sure what rule will cleanly address this problem, but it bears pondering. Maybe an overlay of the probably soon to be axed by SCOTUS Section 5 of the VRA needs to be incorporated (a CD needs to elect a candidate of a minority group's choice where that can be done within a community of interest). That might cause a revision to the Cleveland map to the third one below.

For someone who made such a big deal about my initial partition of Cleveland, I don't get the willingness to chop Parma and Lyndhurst. If cities matter, they must matter more for the smaller cities than for the larger ones. I can live with a rule that they remain intact except where split by county lines, but chopping in the name of improved erosity doesn't pass a reasonable balancing test for me.

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This is very similar to the effect of the two IA compactness rules taken together. It can work in some areas, but even in IA they balance it against the preservation of counties and munis, and political subdivisions generally get priority. The disadvantage of any geometric rule is the difficulty in making the calculation. You can't make it in DRA, but you can zoom to find the info needed to execute my rule. I want the public to be able to ascertain the values with a minimum of specialized software.

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My experience with public comments on maps is that once a district is reasonable, there is less concern about how ideally compact it is. At the point that a district becomes reasonable, the public focus turns to preservation of political subdivisions.

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Your issue with my map goes in part to the complaint about the shape of my CD-6 in my original offering. I looked and agreed that I could definitely improve its whole county erosity by cutting off the area around Muskingum and moving CD-6 into the counties SW of Columbus. That pushed the northern Columbus CD into Richland county and CD-10 had to rotate into Medina. Something had to pick up Muskingum and that is the Canton CD. I could keep more of Stark together by putting Portage with Summit, but that makes for a Youngstown CD that stretches from Ashtabula to Belmont county. I'll look to see if there's another way to absorb Muskingum while leaving most of Stark intact and avoid too much erosity or chops.

In any case this points out the difficulty in discerning chops. My Stark chop totally follows muni and township lines, yet it gets as negative a reaction as when I split the city of Cleveland. Yet a chop following muni lines in Summit doesn't generate anywhere near the same reaction. Both divide a clear metro area yet one gets more reaction. How should one distinguish that difference in a neutral way?

[Torie]

I will study your map in more detail. Perhaps you can send me the data file. I can't see you muni lines of course, although maybe that is in a map of yours above. Yes, the double chop in Cuyahoga was simply an error. It needs to be corrected. I still believe that not worrying about erosity, and focusing solely on chops is a big mistake. The public does not need to understand the software program. They can see it's product with their own eyes, and say, hey, that makes sense. One can get fairly close just by eye balling stuff. My map is off in population totals, and so now I am doing a proper spreadsheet to get it right (the good news is that the chop into Lorain will be far less due to correcting the errors). What I don't think they care about is the number of larger chops versus micro chops.

Anyway, it would be interesting to try to score our two maps in some way, using different formulas, when they are finalized, and we both think we simply can't do any better. As I say, it's all a balancing test, so using my approach, we might both get some points that the other does not.

[TJ in Oregon]

I'm not terribly enthralled by the choice of suburbs that are in OH-15 vs OH-14 here. What was the strategy? Is it based just on population projections for each, drawn in such a way that no split should be made at this point?

I think Euclid and Richmond Heights at least should be in OH-15. Both of them have large black populations and will be even more black by 2020. I think with Parma in particular, you've put enough white Democrats in OH-15 that it's fairly likely Fudge could lose in a primary. Parma is the type of area full of white ethnics where although the election results might not be that lopsided, party identification is.

On the other side of things, I'd imagine the folks in Rocky River wouldn't be thrilled with that map at all! I also think Fairview Park shouldn't really be in OH-15. The Rocky River is a pretty significant cultural boundary, north of Berea anyway (after that point it is no longer in a large ravine).

[muon2]

I'm not terribly enthralled by the choice of suburbs that are in OH-15 vs OH-14 here. What was the strategy? Is it based just on population projections for each, drawn in such a way that no split should be made at this point?

I think Euclid and Richmond Heights at least should be in OH-15. Both of them have large black populations and will be even more black by 2020. I think with Parma in particular, you've put enough white Democrats in OH-15 that it's fairly likely Fudge could lose in a primary. Parma is the type of area full of white ethnics where although the election results might not be that lopsided, party identification is.

On the other side of things, I'd imagine the folks in Rocky River wouldn't be thrilled with that map at all! I also think Fairview Park shouldn't really be in OH-15. The Rocky River is a pretty significant cultural boundary, north of Berea anyway (after that point it is no longer in a large ravine).

The map was based on projections and minimizing county-level erosity. That required no connection between CD-15 and any other county. It obviously ignores internal erosity for CD 14, but shows the role of county erosity in forming a district. Without trying to build black population it get over 36% BVAP.

There will be no VRA requirement to maximize black population in a Cuyahoga CD. The max is about 41% BVAP and that splits the east and west suburbs. About 40% is the max that keeps the Cuyahoga suburbs connected. Even at that it's dicey as to whether blacks could regularly elect a candidate of choice. They would most likely win with a crossover vote from the white majority if they could win the primary.

I posed a question earlier, and it's worth repeating. Is it better to create the largest BVAP district with only a chance of controlling the outcome, or should race be subordinated to compact shapes or creating more balance with partisan districts?

[TJ in Oregon]

Thanks for clarifying that. Now I understand the choice of suburbs. I guess this highlights the issue with applying a generic formula for determining county erosity: in practice switching Euclid and Richmond Heights for Parma change little about the apparent erosity when looking at a map, but do change the number of county line connections.

For me personally, I take a dislike to districts that appear long and narrow or have concave shapes. In Torie's "You know it when you see it" view, that's what tips me off to erosity. For this reason, and the difference in cultural identity between the east and west sides of Cleveland's suburbs, I'm inclined to favor a map similar to those of Torie or Sbane that does a tri-chop of Cuyahoga County to prevent a thin suburban ring like your CD-14.

I posed a question earlier, and it's worth repeating. Is it better to create the largest BVAP district with only a chance of controlling the outcome, or should race be subordinated to compact shapes or creating more balance with partisan districts?

I think the goal should be to create the largest BVAP possible without taking the CD out of Cuyahoga County and without creating a bunch of split municipalities. I also think leaving out the small villages of Oakwood and Glenwillow from the black CD are acceptable if doing so is needed to prevent splitting Summit County to come back in. So I think the largest BVAP should be the first among several competing goals.