Chops and Erosity - Great Lakes Style

[muon2]

Thank you for all of that, but I repeat, is the statement below in any way inaccurate as to how your system works practically speaking?

"If I understand your system (yes, I have difficulty there I admit), macrochops activate chops of subunits that are more than microchops counting as a full chop, intemediate chops do not so activate but count as a county chop, and microchops are not chops but along with macrochops [intermediate chops as well], activate more highways for the created quasi counties vis a vis the erosity score, for both subunits and counties. "

To me a more accurate statement would replace the red with "a macrochop is one or more chops in a county that activates the use of subunits to replace the chop fragments."

and I would replace the green with "a microchop is a chop that does not add to the chop score".

I think a clearer summary would put the role of [intermediate] chops first since they represent the general rule, such as

A chop adds to the chop score and creates quasicounties that activate more transportation links that apply to the erosity score. In general those quasicounties are the fragments of the county created by the chop(s). A macrochop is one or more chops in a county that activates the use of subunits to replace the chop fragments. A microchop is a chop that does not add to the chop score.

To me it makes clear how macrochops and microchops are exceptions to the rule for chops, with one affecting the way the rule creates quasicounties and the other affecting the way the rule increases the chop score.

[Torie]

Indeed. Perfect!  I still think microchops should have a penalty, unless the erosity factor is a sufficient deterrent politically [practically] speaking. Do microchops of subunits in macrochopped counties, also have to contend with more highways being put in play for purposes of the erosity score?

You see, I work hard to avoid chops of subunits, and twist things around where I can, including increasing "inequality" in CD populations, to get there. I suspect the public square expects that, and your system had better have the right incentives to push map drawers in that direction.  I also twist maps to try to get rid of all chops, and failing that, do microchops, and I suspect the public square would expect that too, subject to erosity concerns.

Putting aside our differences on how to get there, are you with me, as to what the incentives should be, and it is merely an issue of a system to effectuate that?

[jimrtex]

Oh, I was mixing up cuts and chops. And you treat a multi-county UCC as one county for this purpose, right?  Anyway, as I think I mentioned before, within UCC's smaller unit chops should count, whether or not you have a macro chop into a UCC. So I was focused on erosity measures within a UCC, which I thought was what we were discussing. And outside UCC's, I am still not persuaded why some state highways should count, and not others, and what to do if there are no state highways between adjacent counties. Is that deemed a chop when two counties with no state highway between them are in the same CD? Or do payed county highways count to avoid a chop?  None of this may obtain to WI or MI perhaps (although some state highways are poorly labeled and hard to find on Dave's matting utility.

Let's back up a moment and start with the simple model, identify shortcomings, and propose solutions. For example, let me take your first question about UCCs.

The simple model says all counties are equal and fewer chops are better. The problem is that there's nothing to dissuade mappers from taking whole urban counties and fingering their districts out to a bunch of rural ones, nor to demote a plan that takes a mid-sized urban area like Lansing and splits it right along the county line. The solution was to define the UCC and add to the chop count when the UCC is split.

Now comes implementation in the chop scoring. The next step simple model would count each county chop and count each multi-county UCC chop then add them together. The modeler now asks if there are problems that are undesirable.

Consider that the implementation has to deal with the following situations: a whole county chop of Clinton from Lansing, a small chop of Clinton, and a small chop of a smaller metro one-county UCC like Calhoun. In the simple UCC application the small chop of Clinton would count twice and the other two examples would only each count once. It seems strange to double count a small chop in Clinton, but not Calhoun. But it also would be strange to double count a chop in Calhoun. It looks like the simple UCC model still is weak.

An alternative would be to treat excessive UCC chops as a separate metric from county chops.

Then the divisions of the Lansing and Battle Creek UCCs are equally bad.

The challenge then is to define what excessive means.

The minimum number of districts in a UCC is ceil(population/quota).  But treating this as a maximum may be problematic when the population is near to an integer multiple of a quota.

So perhaps ceil(population/quota + wiggle), where wiggle is either a constant such as 0.2, or a function of the population.   My sense is that it should not be linear with the population.

For example, if wiggle = 0.2 * (population/quota), we' are saying it is OK to split a UCC with between 0.83 and 1.00 quotas into two districts; but between 1.67 and 2.0 quotas into three districts, which seems excessive.  So maybe something like 0.2 * sqrt(population/quota)

2 if pop >= 0.82 quotas
3 if pop >= 1.74 quotas
4 if pop >= 2.67 quotas
5 if pop >= 3.62 quotas
6 if pop >= 4.57 quotas
7 if pop >= 5.53 quotas
8 if pop >= 6.49 quotas

The computation can be hidden from those submitting plans.   For Michigan, the rule is:

(i) Don't split the Lansing UCC;
(ii) Split the Grand Rapids UCC between two districts.
(iii) Split the Detroit UCC among 6 or 7 districts.
(iva) Don't chop single-county UCCs.
(ivb) Single-county UCC chops count as county chops.

(iva and ivb are alternative rules).

[muon2]

This is a good post highlighting the weaknesses of traditional compactness measures. It also raises some new ideas for urban areas.

There are various mathematical formula that are used to measure compactness of districts. 

One of them compares the perimeter of a district (the length of its outer boundary) with the circumference of a circle with the same area as the district.  It is a measure of the convoluted-ness of the boundary, which may indicate gerrymandering.

But it has certain negative features:

(1) It includes the external boundary of the state since this is part of the boundary of the district.  In Michigan you will have a district that include the upper peninsula.   Even if you have a straight east-west boundary across the lower peninsula, it will score poorly.  And you can make that boundary across the lower peninsula more irregular, with little increased penalty.

(2) It penalizes use of boundaries that follow natural boundaries, such as rivers.  In Ohio, one rules exploit was to create a district along the Ohio River, producing one district with a bad score, but permitting the other districts to have lower score.  It in effect plastered over the rough surface to produce a smooth internal surface.

(3) It has little penalty in districts that mix urban areas with intricate boundaries combined with rural areas.  For example, you could have a quite complex boundary in Cuyahoga County.  Its score would improve if you added Medina County, and improve even more if you added Wayne County.  The same thing can happen in the Detroit area.

You can eliminate the first two problems by ignoring external boundaries and using a simplified measure of the boundary.  Muon prefers a count of highway cuts, while I would use a straight line measurement between boundary nodes (a boundary node is where three (or more) counties meet, as well as the where a boundary between counties meets an external land boundary.

For example, the border between Genesee and Oakland would be measured as a straight line between the Livingston-Genesee-Oakland junction, and the Lapeer-Genessee-Oakland junction.

The above approaches work when you have whole county districts.

Both my method and Muon's method can be extended to chopped counties.  Consider a north-south split of Clinton County.  As long as the boundary followed township boundaries, it does not really matter whether the boundary within Clinton is straight across, or jogs up a township and back, particularly if the jog is for purposes of population equality.

Both Muon and I would treat the two parts of Clinton as the equivalent to counties for measuring erosity.   If Shiawasee were in a 3rd district, then Muon would check for a highway connection between Shiawassee and the two parts of Clinton.  If there is no highway, then Muon would in essence say that the boundary does not disrupt communication and therefore does not disrupt community of interest.

I would simply measure the two segments of the boundary between Shiawasee and Clinton.

In addition, Muon would count a cut between the two parts of Clinton, while I would measure the distance across Clinton.

A third approach would be to ignore the split of Clinton County for purposes of measuring erosity.  Instead Clinton County would be treated as being in the district in which the majority of the population resided.

But the above still does not address the problem within areas of concentrated population such as the Detroit area.  For the most part, it will be impossible to create whole-county districts.  At most, you might control excessive division of counties, and block double (or multiple spanning) where two or more districts include territory from a pair of counties.  It may be impractical to not have a district crossing the Macomb-Oakland boundary, but it is unnecessary to have two or more.

My preferred approach would be to treat the districts in a large UCC as a single unit when measuring erosity.   One could still check for excessive county chopping within the UCC.

After the statewide plan were adopted, then a plan for the 6 Detroit districts could be created, using townships and cities as the building blocks.  A limitation of this decomposition, is that it may require premature definition of the outer boundary of the area.  For example, your decision to go from Oakland and Macomb into Lapeer may have been based on how you were arranging the Detroit area districts.  It might be produce a better Detroit-area plan by going into Monroe. Livingston, or Washtenaw to pick up the extra population.   But I am willing to risk that for the simplification that decomposition provides.

If there were a statewide redistricting commission, then there could be regional redistricting commissions as well.  There might also be local redistricting commissions.  For example, a Clinton County commission could refine the boundary within the county.  Even though they may think the division of the county between two districts sucks, they can still determine a least suck-iest division.

The paragraph in bold suggests an alternate way to determine when a macrochop exists and thus when to invoke subunits. Rather than condition a macrochop on the size of the chop, it can be conditioned on whether or not the county is in a UCC, perhaps even limit it to UCCs of size 2 or larger. It avoids the effect of the small shifts I made in Torie's plan to get rid of the macrochops and reduce erosity, since either the county chops invoke subunits or not and the size doesn't matter.

Such a definition requires some thought. If small (size 1) UCCs do invoke macrochops then there might be pressure to put chops in non-UCC counties since they wouldn't go to subunits. If small UCCs don't invoke macrochops, is it sufficient discouragement for my "bad" plan in Lansing?

[muon2]

Indeed. Perfect!  I still think microchops should have a penalty, unless the erosity factor is a sufficient deterrent politically speaking. Do microchops of subunits in macrochopped counties, also have to content with more highways being put in play for purposes of the erosity score?

You see, I work hard to avoid chops of subunits, and twist things around where I can, including increasing "inequality" in CD populations, to get there. I suspect the public square expects that, and your system had better have the right incentives to push map drawers in that direction.  I also twist maps to try to get rid of all chops, and failing that, do microchops, and I suspect the public square would expect that too, subject to erosity concerns.

Putting aside our differences on how to get there, are you with me, as to what the incentives should be, and it is merely an issue of a system to effectuate that?

I think we agree with the incentive goals you listed. I could even revise my summary statement to the following to accommodate different implementations of microchops.

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In terms of incentives, how do feel about these two area plans,

In particular in Oakland the first plan has a microchop in Brandon twp and the second one avoids the microchop with a peninsula to Orchard Lake. In Wayne the first plan maintains a higher BVAP with higher erosity and a microchop (I think) in one Detroit subunit, and the second plan brings the BVAP closer to but still above 50% with lower erosity and a regular chop of a Detroit subunit.

[Torie]

I am quite concerned myself about forcing chops into non UCC counties, by making a single county UCC sacrosanct.

Regarding tie breakers, are not both political "fairness" and population equality tiebreakers? If so, how do they interplay with each other?

To move the discussion to some practical examples, below are 4 plans for Illinois. How do they score?

All the plans have the same boundary between IL 17 and 18 (see first image). All the plans have a macro-chop between IL-01 and 6, with no subunit chop, and an I chop into DuPage with a subunit chop from the west. The area closer in to Chicago is the same in all maps.

In addition to the above, the plans have as follows:

Plan D has an I-chop in Waukegan,  and between IL-14-16, with a macro chop in Kendall, with no subunit chops in both cases. There is a micro chop between IL 14 and 15 with no subunit chop. Plan C is the same as Plan D except that the I chop is moved from Waukegan to Algonquin in McHenry, chopping both the county and the subunit.

Plan B has a micro-chop between IL 13 and 14, and one I chop in Boone with no subunit chop (Boone is part of a 2 county UCC with Winnebago, so I think if Boone is all in IL-11 it counts as a chop in any event, although I am not sure it counts as a "quasi county" in such an instance, putting more highways into play for erosity scoring), and two I-chops between IL 10, 11 and 12, with subunit chops as well.

Plan A has two micros between IL 13, 14 and 15, an I- chop in Waukegan, and I-chops in Kendall and DeKalb with no subunit chops.

After the scoring, I challenge Muon2 to make a map somewhat similar to the above (so it is easier to compare and figure out the gaming options), that is as "ugly" as possible, yet obtains an equal or better score. That will put his little system to the test, won't it?  

[muon2]

That's quite a complex challenge to score, since I'm currently set up for MI (or WI), so it will take a few days to get IL in the same shape. Another complication is the large size of subunits in the Chicagoland counties. You mention some chops of subunits which I assume are the townships. Are any of those macrochops of a subunit? If so there needs to be an exposition of the subunits of the large townships. I assume that the community areas dating back to the 1920's would be the subunits of Chicago. I also assume you are looking for a score based on my unamended proposal with respect to the thresholds and effects of microchops and macrochops.

In the meantime, I'm still curious to get your take on the two contrasting Detroit area plans.

[Torie]

Regarding the Detroit area map, I absolutely favor getting rid of the chops in Oakland at the cost of some more erosity, particularly where it involved not that much really in area as well as population. If it involved a lot of population (in particular Orchard Lake, if it had - to make a fairly extreme hypothetical case - a macrochop population rather than a microchop population), that would be another matter.

The Wayne map I drew was a disaster, used in order to get the BVAP up, and I think the VRA should be followed only the the minimum extent required by law. So there, there is no contest.

I take it, that for erosity purposes, subunit chops as opposed to not, have no meaning, unless the county was macro-chopped. Is that right? If so, we don't seem to have any incentive, absent a macro-chop, to avoid subunit chops in chopped counties (even if limited to but one between CD's).

[Torie]

That's quite a complex challenge to score, since I'm currently set up for MI (or WI), so it will take a few days to get IL in the same shape. Another complication is the large size of subunits in the Chicagoland counties. You mention some chops of subunits which I assume are the townships. Are any of those macrochops of a subunit? If so there needs to be an exposition of the subunits of the large townships. I assume that the community areas dating back to the 1920's would be the subunits of Chicago. I also assume you are looking for a score based on my unamended proposal with respect to the thresholds and effects of microchops and macrochops.

In the meantime, I'm still curious to get your take on the two contrasting Detroit area plans.

There are no macrochops of any subunits (except in the City of Chicago of course). I avoided that like the plague. You don't need to score the City of Chicago chops for this exercise in how to make an ugly but high scoring map. The map in the City of Chicago is so constrained by the VRA, that there is no much room to maneuver in any event (other than perhaps between IL 4 and 5, which while probably following hood lines pretty well, might get a bad erosity score, and should be aligned east and west of each other, rather and north and south, on their west ends (see below)). The Hispanic CD lines have to be just about where they are, and there is not much room to maneuver between the black CD's either. So even if one went through the exercise of finding the City of Chicago hood lines, not much would change.

[muon2]

I take it, that for erosity purposes, subunit chops as opposed to not, have no meaning, unless the county was macro-chopped. Is that right? If so, we don't seem to have any incentive, absent a macro-chop, to avoid subunit chops in chopped counties (even if limited to but one between CD's).

In the general rule this is correct. In a state like VA, there isn't a good reason to inspect the form of a non macrochop, since the subunits are local constructs, not statutory subunits like townships. In states like MI that have statutory subunits, I suggested that a constraint exist such that no district in a county can have more than one chopped subunit, even if it is not part of a macrochop. One can go even further to say that zero-score microchops of a county can not have a chopped subunit.

In MI cities are statutory subunits, so the public sense of subunit division works fairly well. IL has townships, too, but cities are generally not constrained by townships and often span their boundaries. To complicate matters in the public square, the IL public is more likely to react negatively to a city chop than to a township chop, particularly in the suburbs. However, the suburban townships are not completely divided by munis and they mostly have discontiguous irregular areas of varying size that are unincorporated.

[Torie]

I take it, that for erosity purposes, subunit chops as opposed to not, have no meaning, unless the county was macro-chopped. Is that right? If so, we don't seem to have any incentive, absent a macro-chop, to avoid subunit chops in chopped counties (even if limited to but one between CD's).

In the general rule this is correct. In a state like VA, there isn't a good reason to inspect the form of a non macrochop, since the subunits are local constructs, not statutory subunits like townships. In states like MI that have statutory subunits, I suggested that a constraint exist such that no district in a county can have more than one chopped subunit, even if it is not part of a macrochop. One can go even further to say that zero-score microchops of a county can not have a chopped subunit.

In MI cities are statutory subunits, so the public sense of subunit division works fairly well. IL has townships, too, but cities are generally not constrained by townships and often span their boundaries. To complicate matters in the public square, the IL public is more likely to react negatively to a city chop than to a township chop, particularly in the suburbs. However, the suburban townships are not completely divided by munis and they mostly have discontiguous irregular areas of varying size that are unincorporated.

Is there a problem in Illinois in counting either city or township chops as chops, with chops of townships not counting if involving a chop that avoids effecting a city chop?  And should not avoiding city chops take precedence over township chops, so that if to avoid a township chop you chop a city, that counts as a chop?  Or perhaps the reverse, or that one can go either way, without a chop?  What would work best? If townships are nice little rectangles in general  (they seem to be), perhaps they should take precedence, the better to effect straighter lines.

[muon2]

I take it, that for erosity purposes, subunit chops as opposed to not, have no meaning, unless the county was macro-chopped. Is that right? If so, we don't seem to have any incentive, absent a macro-chop, to avoid subunit chops in chopped counties (even if limited to but one between CD's).

In the general rule this is correct. In a state like VA, there isn't a good reason to inspect the form of a non macrochop, since the subunits are local constructs, not statutory subunits like townships. In states like MI that have statutory subunits, I suggested that a constraint exist such that no district in a county can have more than one chopped subunit, even if it is not part of a macrochop. One can go even further to say that zero-score microchops of a county can not have a chopped subunit.

In MI cities are statutory subunits, so the public sense of subunit division works fairly well. IL has townships, too, but cities are generally not constrained by townships and often span their boundaries. To complicate matters in the public square, the IL public is more likely to react negatively to a city chop than to a township chop, particularly in the suburbs. However, the suburban townships are not completely divided by munis and they mostly have discontiguous irregular areas of varying size that are unincorporated.

Is there a problem in Illinois in counting either city or township chops as chops, with chops of townships not counting if involving a chop that avoids effecting a city chop?  And should not avoiding city chops take precedence over township chops, so that if to avoid a township chop you chop a city, that counts as a chop?  Or perhaps the reverse, or that one can go either way, without a chop?  What would work best? If townships are nice little rectangles in general  (they seem to be), perhaps they should take precedence, the better to effect straighter lines.

This would be nice, but there is no electoral basis for using cities or villages (in IL they are equivalent for our purposes). They don't divide counties well and annexation is extremely easy so the boundaries are often in flux. The resulting boundaries would look horrendously erose in many cases. Townships work much better for redistricting, except for their large population.

[Torie]

OK. But city lines really should be followed in Cook County, no? If not, that just isn't going to fly - at all. Chopping cities without penalty there is just going to get one laughed out of the public square with derision. For the most part, in Cook,  the cities are reasonably compact in shape anyway, and townships really largely irrelevant except maybe at the perimeters, no?  Below is my cleaned up Chicago map. IL-03 needed to go to the city limit line next to Oak Park to stay above 50% BVAP without chopping the hood.

[muon2]

OK. But city lines really should be followed in Cook County, no? If not, that just isn't going to fly - at all. Chopping cities without penalty there is just going to get one laughed out of the public square with derision. Most the most part, in Cook,  the cities are reasonably compact in shape anyway, and townships really largely irrelevant except maybe at the perimeters, no?  Below is my cleaned up Chicago map. IL-05 needed to go to the city limit line next to Oak Park to stay above 50% BVAP without chopping the hood.

Cook does lend itself better for muni division (cities and villages) than do the other collar counties. Even then one has to make some assignments of unincorporated pockets to adjacent cities, but the precincts can often handle that. Do those muni divisions become the township subunits, or are they instead of twps. Townships actually matter politically in Cook since the party committees elect their committeemen by township (and wards within Chicago). So, for example is that a macrochop of Proviso twp between the red green and brown CDs.

I assume that you are going to deal with the outcry that there are now three CDs with BVAP over 50%, and you are dropping it to two. What are the VAP fractions in your CD 4 (brown)?

[Torie]

Unless three black CD's are legally required (I strongly doubt it), let them howl for this exercise.

I totally ignored townships for Cook county, and just followed what appeared to be the muni lines, but I guess some are villages. Anyway, the answer is that there is no macro-chop of Proviso. I got lucky I guess.   It seems that you should get some credit for following village lines like a good little boy the way I did, versus not. Perhaps that could be another tie breaker.

  

[Torie]

Well, we had a little problem in DuPage, where I also ignored townships way back when. And voila, we have a macrochop - barely. So now we expand the chop of IL-12 into DuPage, to get the population of IL-09 down so that it can expand more into York Township, and IL-07 into other adjacent CD's, to get its population up a bit to get its chop into York Township down, and the population of the adjacent CD's to IL-07 down (well IL-01 can't contract alas, but IL-04 and 02 can, to get the York Township chop down below a macrochop, wantonly slicing village lines, which are penalty free. See how this game works?  

Perhaps one should allow such an excess without calling it a macrochop, if done without slicing village lines, where it is possible to get it down below a macrochop, by slicing village lines. Otherwise, it is going to be slice city when it comes to villages. So many games, so little time.



And voila, the deed is done, and in this case we did not need to chop any villages. Even so, it might have been necessary, and it does illustrate an issue here to think about, now doesn't it? It seems a bit like silly season to me, where we are looking for gravitas, rather than game playing ability.

[muon2]

My feeling is that the muni lines are so erose, that the priority should be townships first, then munis within a township. In your plan Lombard is chopped by virtue of the York twp chop in DuPage. The public might not prefer it, but I think it can be justified from erosity. Perhaps I can apply the rule I suggested for MI. In the Chicago UCC if there is a chop of a township, there cannot be more than one chopped muni in that twp in a district. However, overlapping precincts can be treated as in either muni (given that DRA lacks the pop by muni).

[Torie]

My feeling is that the muni lines are so erose, that the priority should be townships first, then munis within a township. In your plan Lombard is chopped by virtue of the York twp chop in DuPage. The public might not prefer it, but I think it can be justified from erosity. Perhaps I can apply the rule I suggested for MI. In the Chicago UCC if there is a chop of a township, there cannot be more than one chopped muni in that twp in a district. However, overlapping precincts can be treated as in either muni (given that DRA lacks the pop by muni).

Oh I agree that townships should rule over munis in general, unless the munis are separately labeled per Dave's application, which they are for some cities for whatever reason (e.g., say Berwyn). More to the point, should lines be straightened to reduce erosity but at the cost of slicing and dicing villages (my line between IL-01 and IL-07 is jagged for that reason - to avoid village chops).  I don't think so. There is the rub.

As a wild guess, after the fixes in Chicago and DuPage and what not, which would apply to all plans, which plan do you suspect would get the highest score?  Yes, I know, with your most skillful Machiavellian hand, you could find the plan that gets an even higher score - you almost always do.  But this exercise is about a matching or better score with a butt ugly map. That is your challenge. Test your metrics, to see if they hold at bay the gaming, or just some geek out to prove your metrics are flawed, at least at the margins. We both know where we want to go, and seem to agree basically on that. So in that sense, we are on the same side. Trash, and then try to trash some more, your metrics. Go for it!

[Sol]

The finagling over chopping townships versus munis brings up another point--in quite a lot of states, town boundaries don't make a lot of sense, and there are no significant townships.

[muon2]

The finagling over chopping townships versus munis brings up another point--in quite a lot of states, town boundaries don't make a lot of sense, and there are no significant townships.

Exactly. That was what I was driving towards in the VA exercise. I took many of the larger counties and independent cities and found suitable subunits. My macrochop rule would not affect counties under 70K, and most large units have planning areas, or other recognized subunits. The same exercise would have to apply to the states that don't have county subdivisions established by the state for use by the Census.

[muon2]

Here is the connection map for IL. As with the others, these are the regional connections based on numbered state and federal highways that join the seats of two county governments without crossing into a third county.

[muon2]

Here is the UCC map of IL, weighted for CDs. The beige circles are single county UCCs (not scored for chops in this model). The pink circles are multi-county UCCs, and there are four that span two counties and are smaller than a CD. The Chicago UCC includes 8 counties and will have a minimum of 12 CDs. It is useful to note that the Chicago UCC is 11.9758 CDs, so it needs only 17,209 additional people to be exactly 12 CDs, well within microchopping range given the number of CDs within and outside it.

[Torie]

Thanks for sharing Mike.  I am reposting my post from above, plus adding maps to parry Mike's thrust at the end hereof (so that all the mappies are in one place for viewing pleasure).


I am quite concerned myself about forcing chops into non UCC counties, by making a single county UCC sacrosanct.

Regarding tie breakers, are not both political "fairness" and population equality tiebreakers? If so, how do they interplay with each other?

To move the discussion to some practical examples, below are 4 plans for Illinois. How do they score?

All the plans have the same boundary between IL 17 and 18 (see first image). All the plans have a macro-chop between IL-01 and 6, with no subunit chop, and an I chop into DuPage with a subunit chop from the west. The area closer in to Chicago is the same in all maps.

In addition to the above, the plans have as follows:

Plan D has an I-chop in Waukegan,  and between IL-14-16, with a macro chop in Kendall, with no subunit chops in both cases. There is a micro chop between IL 14 and 15 with no subunit chop. Plan C is the same as Plan D except that the I chop is moved from Waukegan to Algonquin in McHenry, chopping both the county and the subunit.

Plan B has a micro-chop between IL 13 and 14, and one I chop in Boone with no subunit chop (Boone is part of a 2 county UCC with Winnebago, so I think if Boone is all in IL-11 it counts as a chop in any event, although I am not sure it counts as a "quasi county" in such an instance, putting more highways into play for erosity scoring), and two I-chops between IL 10, 11 and 12, with subunit chops as well.

Plan A has two micros between IL 13, 14 and 15, an I- chop in Waukegan, and I-chops in Kendall and DeKalb with no subunit chops.

After the scoring, I challenge Muon2 to make a map somewhat similar to the above (so it is easier to compare and figure out the gaming options), that is as "ugly" as possible, yet obtains an equal or better score. That will put his little system to the test, won't it?  







And now more mappies!

Chicagoland cleanup map (applies to all maps except when it doesn't) and Muon2’s once upon a time chop-phobia map:



 

Another contest map to be scored (is it the fairest of them all to the reasonable person?)



Muon2’s maxi micro-chopped wonderland fantasy map

[muon2]

Let's score one map and see if it makes sense. I'll pick A because it comes first in the alphabet. I want to make sure I'm seeing the same thing as the image, so can you send the population deviations for that plan. If this were run like the VA commission I would ask for the vote totals (2008 pres) and the racial breakdowns for the Cook county districts.

It's helpful to me to reconstruct one of your maps so I can judge the chops. But for instance, as I set up plan A, I'm not seeing the reason for the Mercer microchop (not that there's anything wrong with adding microchops if you like). I worry that I'm missing some precincts somewhere.

[muon2]

So here's what I see on the chop score for A.

At the UCC level there is 1 chop of the Rockford UCC (minimum is 0). There are 14 CDs in the Chicago UCC so that is 13 chops (minimum is 11). Total score 12. These UCC chops are macro chopped so their counties are in play.

County chops I see are
Mason, 1 microchop
Mercer, 1 microchop
Kendall, 1 chop
Lake, 1 chop; macrochop; townships are in play
DuPage, 2 chops; macrochop; townships are in play
Cook, 8 chops; macrochop; townships are in play
total score for counties 12 chops

Township chops I see
Waukegan (Lake); 1 chop
Naperville (DuPage); 1 chop
York (DuPage); 1 chop; macrochop (38,347); munis are in play
Leyden, Norwood Park (Cook); no chops within contiguous pieces
Riverside (Cook); 1 microchop
Proviso (Cook); 2 chops, 1 microchop, only one counts
Lyons (Cook); 1 chop
Worth (Cook); 1 chop
Bremen (Cook); 1 chop
Rich (Cook); 2 chops; macrochop; munis are in play
Thornton (Cook); 1 microchop
Chicago (Cook); 4 chops; macrochop; community areas would be in play if scored
total score for townships 13 chops

Muni chops within macrochopped townships
Lombard (York); 1 chop
No munis chopped in (Rich)
total score for munis 1

Grand total CHOP=38