Local vs regional road connections

[jimrtex]

Beaux Arts Village is contiguous to Mercer Island, but not connected due to Lake Washington. Since the only connection is to Bellevue, it is surrounded.

Is this different than Asotin or San Juan counties?

If Bellevue was chopped, could I dice Beaux Arts Village as part of the chop?

[jimrtex]

The second column is the population of each school district (within King County)

The third column reflects inclusion of the entirety of a city in the school district which is the predominate district. For example, Auburn school district adds the portions of the city of Auburn that are in the Federal Way and Kent school districts, plus the portion of the city of Pacific in Fife school district.

Federal Way and Issaquah school districts lose the most to this adjustment, with Federal Way losing to the cities of Kent, Des Moines, and Auburn; while Issaquah loses mainly to the city of Bellevue.

The fourth column is adjust to treat the cities that are divided among several districts as separate subunits.

Black Diamond is about 60% in Enumclaw district, with the remainder in Kent and Tahoma.
Newcastle is about evenly split between Renton and Issaquah.
Sammamish is about evenly split between Lake Washington and Issaquah.

These three cities are further east, with growth after the school districts had been delineated.

Auburn School District   77609   81444   81431
Bellevue School District   124003   134166   134123
Enumclaw School District   25179   25179   22708
Federal Way School District   130706   111023   111023
Fife Public Schools   4302   4058   4058
Highline School District   124481   127691   127691
Issaquah School District   98660   86439   60477
Kent School District   158233   168732   167727
Lake Washington School District   177476   178289   153417
Mercer Island School District   22699   22699   22699
Northshore School District   76338   76304   76304
Renton School District   115511   117924   112850
Riverview School District   19315   19315   19315
Seattle School District   609471   609060   609060
Shoreline School District   65547   65605   65605
Skykomish School District   627   627   627
Snoqualmie Valley School District   35054   35054   34845
Tahoma School District   37376   37516   36854
Tukwila School District   18038   19500   19500
Vashon Island School District   10624   10624   10624
Black Diamond city   0   0   4151
Newcastle city   0   0   10380
Sammamish city   0   0   45780

[muon2]

Beaux Arts Village is contiguous to Mercer Island, but not connected due to Lake Washington. Since the only connection is to Bellevue, it is surrounded.

Is this different than Asotin or San Juan counties?

If Bellevue was chopped, could I dice Beaux Arts Village as part of the chop?

When I'm shifting counties to form regions I treat Asotin and Garfield as a single unit. Any shift of Garfield brings Asotin along with it, since Asotin is only connected to Garfield. A bigger example is the UP of MI which stays together with Cheboygan for CDs since it has only that one connection.

Bellevue is large enough to macrochop so it's conceivable that neighborhoods could be defined, and Beaux Arts Village would be a neighborhood. If we treat Bellevue as we did other large cities in MI (except Detroit), then the subunits of the city are the precincts and Beaux Arts Village is its own precinct, so it would not be chopped.

[Torie]

The subunits of a city are its precincts? What does that mean? That seems to imply there would never be a chop. When does a city have neighborhoods larger than single precincts?

[muon2]

The subunits of a city are its precincts? What does that mean? That seems to imply there would never be a chop. When does a city have neighborhoods larger than single precincts?

I was quoting the rule we adopted for MI last year. We decided that we would only define neighborhoods for Detroit, since it had to be chopped. No one raised the issue of neighborhoods for the other communities, so we defined precincts as the subunits for computing erosity had the situation occurred. It's in the thread I linked.

The MI rules implied that cities that must be chopped would have defined neighborhoods, but we never addressed what if any other cities would have neighborhoods.

[Torie]

That makes no sense for a model code. Erasing cities that are deemed too small in a drive to carve up the fruited plain into subunits of a certain size does not either, particularly if that is done in some states and not others. Ignoring smaller cities as a guide as to where to chop, and where not to, is just bad policy. These erased cities can be chopped up to bits at will, if the subunit they disappeared into is chopped. It will not be accepted. Smaller cities will not like that, nor should they. Erase Hudson, NY? Never! Little enclaves between subunits are precisely the place to chop as in putting in one CD or another to make the populations work. Erasing them is unfortunate. I will put my thoughts together later more coherently. My course would not be to so erase, but to try to create subunits were there really is no guidance provided, subject to the one bite rule for such newly created subunits. Such a rule would apply everywhere. The balance of trying to get the best balance of good policy and recognizing political reality is being lost here. I dissent.

Here is my map of King County. It's interesting that my initial effort just moving my mouse around, is not all that different than Muon2's map when it comes to these artificial subunits, although some are combined, and in a couple of instances divided. The artificial subunits following the schools district lines, result in subunits that vary a lot by population, but that is OK, because cities do too I guess. Yes, some cities are surrounded by subunits. That is fine. We have been dealing with that in our maps since rocks cooled. So sometimes one cannot chop a subunit, or take in a subunit, because it is surrounded by another subunit. So we move on, and chop somewhere else. I would defer to state law as to what to do about parts of cities divided by another subunit. If state law requires contiguous districts in this context, than the municipal islands disappear into the subunit that surrounds them. If not, you have non contiguous CD's. The white areas are those small areas surrounded by cities, They can go in either adjacent CD - whatever makes the populations work. Areas surrounded by a city that are not themselves a city are erased. There is no reason to erase Vashon Island. It must be appended to a Seattle CD by virtue of the ferry/bridge rule. There is no reason to make the place disappear. Someday, maybe it will have another connection that is not Seattle based, and be liberated from its grip. That obtains with any of these subunits. They are subject to the connectivity rules.

We have been living with this regime since the beginning of time, as has anyone who draws maps. We can continue to live with it. Upsetting the apple cart I think has no public policy justification, and will not be accepted. The only reason we have these artificial subunits, is to give some "objective" guidance in drawing the lines, where we have a big enough population, of to some extent, a large enough piece of real estate, with no boundaries delimiting it.

These artificial subunits are subject to the one bite rule. Townships or cities that are recognized entities, and thus have nested precincts, are not. Washington has no townships, so we take no cognizance of towns here. That is my position on this matter. Absent the one bite rule, these artificial subunits are not tolerable to me (particularly if relatively small, but that is just an exacerbating factor) - given the population accident specter.
 

[jimrtex]

The subunits of a city are its precincts? What does that mean? That seems to imply there would never be a chop. When does a city have neighborhoods larger than single precincts?

I was quoting the rule we adopted for MI last year. We decided that we would only define neighborhoods for Detroit, since it had to be chopped. No one raised the issue of neighborhoods for the other communities, so we defined precincts as the subunits for computing erosity had the situation occurred. It's in the thread I linked.

The MI rules implied that cities that must be chopped would have defined neighborhoods, but we never addressed what if any other cities would have neighborhoods.

Is it your intent that units would also be used for legislative redistricting?

[Torie]

The subunits of a city are its precincts? What does that mean? That seems to imply there would never be a chop. When does a city have neighborhoods larger than single precincts?

I was quoting the rule we adopted for MI last year. We decided that we would only define neighborhoods for Detroit, since it had to be chopped. No one raised the issue of neighborhoods for the other communities, so we defined precincts as the subunits for computing erosity had the situation occurred. It's in the thread I linked.

The MI rules implied that cities that must be chopped would have defined neighborhoods, but we never addressed what if any other cities would have neighborhoods.

Is it your intent that units would also be used for legislative redistricting?

That would be fun. You really would need a computer to sort that one out.   Maybe the size of state legislatures should change as the number of their CD's change, so that they can all be nested.

[jimrtex]

Beaux Arts Village is contiguous to Mercer Island, but not connected due to Lake Washington. Since the only connection is to Bellevue, it is surrounded.

Is this different than Asotin or San Juan counties?

If Bellevue was chopped, could I dice Beaux Arts Village as part of the chop?

When I'm shifting counties to form regions I treat Asotin and Garfield as a single unit. Any shift of Garfield brings Asotin along with it, since Asotin is only connected to Garfield. A bigger example is the UP of MI which stays together with Cheboygan for CDs since it has only that one connection.

Bellevue is large enough to macrochop so it's conceivable that neighborhoods could be defined, and Beaux Arts Village would be a neighborhood. If we treat Bellevue as we did other large cities in MI (except Detroit), then the subunits of the city are the precincts and Beaux Arts Village is its own precinct, so it would not be chopped.

If the rule set forces Beaux Arts Village to be included in a district that includes Bellevue, there is no reason to do a formal merging. You have similar situations in Idaho, Minnesota, New York, Florida, and Texas with counties and probably others.

[Torie]

Beaux Arts Village is contiguous to Mercer Island, but not connected due to Lake Washington. Since the only connection is to Bellevue, it is surrounded.

Is this different than Asotin or San Juan counties?

If Bellevue was chopped, could I dice Beaux Arts Village as part of the chop?

When I'm shifting counties to form regions I treat Asotin and Garfield as a single unit. Any shift of Garfield brings Asotin along with it, since Asotin is only connected to Garfield. A bigger example is the UP of MI which stays together with Cheboygan for CDs since it has only that one connection.

Bellevue is large enough to macrochop so it's conceivable that neighborhoods could be defined, and Beaux Arts Village would be a neighborhood. If we treat Bellevue as we did other large cities in MI (except Detroit), then the subunits of the city are the precincts and Beaux Arts Village is its own precinct, so it would not be chopped.

If the rule set forces Beaux Arts Village to be included in a district that includes Bellevue, there is no reason to do a formal merging. You have similar situations in Idaho, Minnesota, New York, Florida, and Texas with counties and probably others.

Exactly. I need to correct my map! Thanks.

[muon2]

Torie, what are your criteria for where you did split swaths of unincorporated area into separate subunits? We should be consistent. I still think it makes no sense to absorb included unincorporated areas into cities, but not minimal pockets trapped between two cities.

I don't have a problem if we want to make all the incorporated munis stand out even when surrounded. I don't think it will make a difference in the end, but that's just my opinion. I would note that towns are recognized as incorporated units. There are four in the county - Beaux Arts Village, Hunts Point, Skykomish, Yarrow Point. I would think that you want to treat these towns the same as cities.

[Torie]

Torie, what are your criteria for where you did split swaths of unincorporated area into separate subunits? We should be consistent. I still think it makes no sense to absorb included unincorporated areas into cities, but not minimal pockets trapped between two cities.

The pockets between cities are a good place to get the population in line, are small, and do no harm being there that I can see. If not trapped between cities, that is another matter. That is my rationale. The idea is where partisan issues are not in play, to do chops in the best, and least disruptive place.

I don't have a problem if we want to make all the incorporated munis stand out even when surrounded. I don't think it will make a difference in the end, but that's just my opinion. I would note that towns are recognized as incorporated units. There are four in the county - Beaux Arts Village, Hunts Point, Skykomish, Yarrow Point. I would think that you want to treat these towns the same as cities.

Yes, I would, of course. In fact, in the map I just drew below as an experiment for two CD's, the Seattle one, and the Cascades crossing one, it appears that little magenta thing next to Sammamish, is such a town. If not, we have an artificial subunit chop, that does not count as a chop. But if it is, that's grand, because that is precisely the place that the subunit chop should go, and it would be a pity not to guide the line drawer to place the line there. In the map below, the district that crosses the Cascades, like we did with the 2022 map, barely falls into the d category, rather than the D category, which is a good thing. Not that this is the best approach for a state map for 2012, but it was an experiment.

When chopping an artificial subunit (or any subunit for that matter), you want to incentivize not chopping a surrounded city as well in the process. That would be most unfortunate to have a total free pass in chopping such small cities. They would resent that, and should, and it inconveniences boards of elections. Don't you agree? Pity that West Chicago is not so surrounded, so that I can draw the line right through your backyard as a little experiment! In fact, I think the current CD line chops West Chicago, and your home is very close to the line is it not? We might has well move it closer.

I hope I have answered all of your questions adequately. I seem to have been something of a FAIL in that department recently.

[muon2]

Your criteria strike me as an artist's endeavor and not something one could codify. I tried to be quite explicit that the divisions in the unincorporated areas should be based on the divisions between school districts. You haven't given a reason as to why that is unacceptable.

One way to deal with pockets is if the school district approach is used then movement of separate pockets or inclusions count without chop penalty. We would treat them as we would a disconnected county or muni (or township as in OH).

My approach to this assumes the MI rules as a baseline, but not necessarily the endpoint. The MI rules have the advantage of more than a dozen good map attempts from our different mappers to provide a rich set of data to test the rules. Given that baseline, I want to see where individual rules in the baseline fail before making changes. My hope is that the WA exercise will allow mappers to craft examples that show the weakness in those rules, but we aren't there yet until we can agree on subunits that replace the MI townships.

Along that line, I think it is unwise to try to encode neighborhoods for all large munis. Given the lack of agreement on county subunits, I imagine it would be that much harder to come to agreement with the Bellevues of the state. Munis and school districts are encoded Census info, but neighborhoods are not. I propose that neighborhood definitions are only required for those cities that must be chopped based on population or for those where the VRA compels that a city be chopped.

[Torie]

Your criteria strike me as an artist's endeavor and not something one could codify. I tried to quite explicit that the divisions in the unincorporated areas should be based on the divisions between school districts. You haven't given a reason as to why that is unacceptable.

It has nothing to do with artistry really (I understand now that you are after me any time that you use the word "art" or "artist").  It can all be codified. In this case, it is unincorporated territory trapped between cities, that is not of sufficient size to justify creating a separate subunit for such territory, as opposed to serving as a vehicle to encourage line chops there. I gave the policy reason. To encourage the chop there, rather than in the actual city itself. It seems rather obvious to me, and has no policy downside - just upside. I am using your school districts for unincorporated territory, that is not of small size, trapped between cities.

My approach to this assumes the MI rules as a baseline, but not necessarily the endpoint. The MI rules have the advantage of more than a dozen good map attempts from our different mappers to provide a rich set of data to test the rules. Given that baseline, I want to see where individual rules in the baseline fail before making changes. My hope is that the WA exercise will allow mappers to craft examples that show the weakness in those rules, but we aren't there yet until we can agree on subunits that replace the MI townships.

I am OK with respecting the townships in Michigan. They tend to be small. They in a good way, help to guide where the lines are drawn. It is not a problem. One may need subunits for large townships perhaps such as West Broomfield, however. And for non macro-chops into townships or cities, we seem in Michigan to just have a flat ban. That is unwise, and potentially unworkable. I am open to suggestions about how to handle those.

Along that line, I think it is unwise to try to encode neighborhoods for all large munis. Given the lack of agreement on county subunits, I imagine it would be that much harder to come to agreement with the Bellevues of the state. Munis and school districts are encoded Census info, but neighborhoods are not. I propose that neighborhood definitions are only required for those cities that must be chopped based on population or for those where the VRA compels that a city be chopped.

Macro-chops of Munis are just banned, period, unless compelled by something, whatever that might be? That makes no sense. We don't seem to have a problem in most cases finding a good subunit map for cities. Yes, the case where one will want to macro-chop into a city for scoring purposes will be relatively rare, and I don't suggest for a moment that we spend much time doing that, except where cities, particularly large cities, are in real play (or for that matter towns or townships, such as, e.g. Hempstead). It is the policy metrics, and their contents, that count.  

[muon2]

Your criteria strike me as an artist's endeavor and not something one could codify. I tried to quite explicit that the divisions in the unincorporated areas should be based on the divisions between school districts. You haven't given a reason as to why that is unacceptable.

It has nothing to do with artistry really (I understand now that you are after me any time that you use the word "art" or "artist").  It can all be codified. In this case, it is unincorporated territory trapped between cities, that is not of sufficient size to justify creating a separate subunit for such territory, as opposed to serving as a vehicle to encourage line chops there. I gave the policy reason. To encourage the chop there, rather than in the actual city itself. It seems rather obvious to me, and has no policy downside - just upside. I am using your school districts for unincorporated territory, that is not of small size, trapped between cities.

I raised my point because sometimes you use the school districts to divide unincorporated areas but other times you do not. I think the sounder policy is to use it in all cases - it's much easier defend that way. If it creates some small pocket pinned against a city, such as I have east of Renton, so be it. It is no different than the issues faced in OH where incorporated munis create all sorts of fragments out of the townships. Stark county is a good example.



Why not view King like Stark? Start with the school districts instead of the townships, then overlay the munis on top as whole entities. There will be lots of fragments in King, but like in OH, we won't penalize subunit chops that act on disconnected fragments.

[Torie]

Your criteria strike me as an artist's endeavor and not something one could codify. I tried to quite explicit that the divisions in the unincorporated areas should be based on the divisions between school districts. You haven't given a reason as to why that is unacceptable.

It has nothing to do with artistry really (I understand now that you are after me any time that you use the word "art" or "artist").  It can all be codified. In this case, it is unincorporated territory trapped between cities, that is not of sufficient size to justify creating a separate subunit for such territory, as opposed to serving as a vehicle to encourage line chops there. I gave the policy reason. To encourage the chop there, rather than in the actual city itself. It seems rather obvious to me, and has no policy downside - just upside. I am using your school districts for unincorporated territory, that is not of small size, trapped between cities.

I raised my point because sometimes you use the school districts to divide unincorporated areas but other times you do not. I think the sounder policy is to use it in all cases - it's much easier defend that way. If it creates some small pocket pinned against a city, such as I have east of Renton, so be it. It is no different than the issues faced in OH where incorporated munis create all sorts of fragments out of the townships. Stark county is a good example.



Why not view King like Stark? Start with the school districts instead of the townships, then overlay the munis on top as whole entities. There will be lots of fragments in King, but like in OH, we won't penalize subunit chops that act on disconnected fragments.

I apologize for not really understanding your point. I just used your school district lines, with the sole exception of small pockets of unincorporated territory pinned between cities, or cities and towns (that I missed, as you pointed out). I explained my reasoning for the exception, which I think is sound and practical, and will not lead to mischief. If this territory were not trapped, it would be appended to an artificial subunit. But it is trapped. I think most will understand and agree with this exception. It is designed to avoid chops into actual cities and towns, where that can be avoided. The only reason for artificial subunits is to avoid having too much unbridled leeway involving too large a population. To the extent that my map did not do that, it is probably an error. That was my intent.

Stark County has no territory that is not either in a township or a city. I don't understand the relevance of bringing that county up here. If you chop either a township or a city, you should have some sort of penalty. If you chop both, you should have a larger penalty. I have spent a lot of time avoiding such chops of such places, along with avoiding highway cuts. I was able to deal with it. Frankly outside really large cities, and towns and townships, most of this is rather small beer in all likelihood, absent something unusual happening. The big game is within big townships and cities.

[muon2]

At one time we held that if township consisted of two disconnected parts and the parts were placed in separate districts, no chop penalty was assessed. Did we change this at some point? Should we?

WA has no township structure. The Census encodes blocks by munis, townships, and school districts where any of these exist, so they are all defensible redistricting subdivisions. Residents in areas with townships are far more likely to know their school district than their township (trust me on this one). Therefore school districts are a reasonable substitute for townships in states like WA that have no townships.

[Torie]

At one time we held that if township consisted of two disconnected parts and the parts were placed in separate districts, no chop penalty was assessed. Did we change this at some point? Should we?

Don't know. We probably should. It should be avoided where possible. Perhaps it should be another preference item. It is better to chop that township, than it is another one, without such a municipal barrier severing it. But rather than take in another township, it would be better to take in the other severed portion of the township first.

WA has no township structure. The Census encodes blocks by munis, townships, and school districts where any of these exist, so they are all defensible redistricting subdivisions. Residents in areas with townships are far more likely to know their school district than their township (trust me on this one). Therefore school districts are a reasonable substitute for townships in states like WA that have no townships.

I think I have made it plain, that I agree with that. If you are saying that folks would rather that  a city or town be chopped,  than a school district, I tend to doubt that. Townships (NY calls them towns, because they are weird), are very important to folks in Columbia County, NY, I assure you. Granted, in Madison County, Iowa they are not. I don't think they have any governmental structure. They are just there on the map, without any meaning (found a treatise dated 1913, when they seemed to have much more meaning in Iowa  as in electing bureaucrats and have jobs to hand out). In NY, patronage is associated with towns/townships, and jobs and fighting over money, and of course, town judges, and town council members, and who gets elected a supervisor from the town, and so forth. But then, New York loves lots of layers of government. It means more patronage! And Hudson has 5 county supervisors (currently elected from illegally shaped districts until I sue to put an end to that, but I digress), while each town has but one. That means 4 extra jobs that pay about 20K a year for very part time work, but health benefits. Since industry is dead largely in upstate NY, for the locals, who don't work over the internet, or bring their money with them, it's a big, big deal. It's either a government job, or working at Walmart, or being on welfare.

Sorry for the NY diversion. NY fascinates me. It's another planet from the one from which I originated.

[muon2]

At one time we held that if township consisted of two disconnected parts and the parts were placed in separate districts, no chop penalty was assessed. Did we change this at some point? Should we?

Don't know. We probably should. It should be avoided where possible. Perhaps it should be another preference item. It is better to chop that township, than it is another one, without such a municipal barrier severing it. But rather than take in another township, it would be better to take in the other severed portion of the township first.

WA has no township structure. The Census encodes blocks by munis, townships, and school districts where any of these exist, so they are all defensible redistricting subdivisions. Residents in areas with townships are far more likely to know their school district than their township (trust me on this one). Therefore school districts are a reasonable substitute for townships in states like WA that have no townships.

I think I have made it plain, that I agree with that. If you are saying that folks would rather that  a city or town be chopped, rather than a school district, I tend to doubt that. Townships (NY calls them towns, because they are weird), are very important to folks in Columbia County, NY, I assure you. Granted, in Madison County, Iowa they are not. I don't think they have any governmental structure. They are just there on the map, without any meaning. In NY, patronage is associated with towns/townships, and jobs and fighting over money, and of course, town judges, and town council members, and who gets elected a supervisor from the town, and so forth. But then, New York loves lots of layers of government. It means more patronage! And Hudson has 5 county supervisors (currently elected from illegally shaped districts until I sue to put an end to that, but I digress), while each town has but one. That means 4 extra jobs that pay about 20K a year for very part time work, but health benefits. Since industry is dead largely in upstate NY, for the locals, who don't work over the internet, or bring their money with them, it's a big, big deal. It's either a government job, or working at Walmart, or being on welfare.

Sorry for the NY diversion. NY fascinates me. It's another planet from the one from which I originated.

Of course most people know their city and state ahead of anything else. IIRC in NY, New England, and a couple of other northeastern states munis can't spill over town lines so towns have an elevated status. In New England towns are so elevated I would ignore counties entirely for the rules (except for those counties with unorganized territory) and just use towns. Experience with towns there doesn't transfer easily to other states outside the Northeast.

I was thinking of the Midwest when I made my comparison between townships and school districts.

Throughout the Midwest, there are townships. Most have an actual government structure with elected trustees. IA does, too. If I grab random people from IL, IA, OH, etc, they are more likely to know what school district they are in than what township serves them. That's especially true in urbanized counties near the big cities.

That's why I think it makes sense for counties like King in WA to use school districts where we would use townships in counties like Stark in OH. The rules then become easy to defend and easy to generalize to many states.

[Torie]

What exactly are we disagreeing about now? Are we still on the trapped unincorporated thing, where it's a choice between chopping a city or town, or a school district? Or have we moved on to something else? Or is your order city, then school district, and then town in WA, because towns don't mean anything in Washington, or what? My little white spots are just between cities anyway. You just want to have cities swallow up these little bits, so that then when chopped, no distinction is drawn about where you chop. Oh, and I think you have some cities swallowing up non trapped areas, rather than keeping them in a separate subunit, to exacerbate the matter. This concept of cities swallowing up stuff is novel. We have no precedent for such subunit expansion. What I thought we were dealing with, is how to handle territory that was bereft of subunits. But then we had mission creep, and creeping municipal lines effectively. What you really want to do, is dump cities and towns into the dumpster, and just have school districts really, simply because we have some territory that is unclaimed, so let's deal with that, by having wholesale erasures. Well maybe.

We are not making much progress are we?  

[Torie]

In the real world of course, probably at the end of the day, one will offer up choices for states to think about.

1. UCC clusters are to try to keep urban areas from dominating rural ones. If you care about that, we have some metrics to help.

2. Subunits are good to give guidance in line drawing that is objective. The less guidance, the more leeway to let subjectivity in. Skew patrol can help in picking maps in this context.

3. For more guidance, we suggest city and township units. For states that have neither for certain areas, one can either create subunits for unclaimed territory based planning districts, or school districts, or whatever seems practical, or find another subunit for the state, and just erase city and town subunits, God help us all, such as school districts in lieu thereof. Sometimes it won't matter, because school district lines will match municipal lines. Sometimes it will.

4. Within big subunits, for guidance one might create sub-subunits within. We find planning districts to be practical. However, for skew patrol, either within big subunits, or with respect to unclaimed territory, where non city and town subunits are used, and instead school districts or planning districts or voting districts such as in MD perhaps, and to avoid population accidents, that screw skew, one might want to consider the one bite rule. Given the proxy for erosity that we suggest, even with one bite, maps will still look acceptably "artistic" and not erose, while keeping skew down, which is good for the minority party in a state, or where the geographic dispersion of party preferences, gives one party a natural advantage creating skew.

My whole theme on this thread at the moment, is perhaps it is time to get practical, rather than allow elegance to rule the roost. You think I am fixated with art. I think you are fixated with elegance. The two apparently are very, very hard to bridge. I think I am being practical, and you are not, but I am biased. So let the states decide even if we can't. Let's admit our FAIL, and move on.

The problem of course with a cafeteria regime is that the party hacks will want to know what this does on a nationwide basis, if they're smart. If they don't know, they will worry that other states might do things more favorable to the other party using plan y rather than x, while they are more accommodative to the other party using plan x rather than y, and that is sort of in the same category as unilateral disarmament, or unilateral disarmament light. So that will give more color to having a rationale for a do nothing regime, or a "gameable" COI regime, etc.

I have a headache.

One more thought. The way to the promise land, might be to get courts interested in this approach. If judges start going our way, in gridlock situations, the partisan hacks may start to follow, if only because it seems necessary to protect themselves from a judge making the final decisions, shutting them out. So what would appeal most to a judge or judges? Remember judges are not too interested in getting too radical. They tend to be rather conservative, as in not going too far out of the box. So maybe we should start thinking more about that. Maybe we need to talk to a lawyer about some of this interested in these issues, with some knowledge about it. Just a thought.

[muon2]

What exactly are we disagreeing about now? Are we still on the trapped unincorporated thing, where it's a choice between chopping a city or town, or a school district? Or have we moved on to something else? Or is your order city, then school district, and then town in WA, because towns don't mean anything in Washington, or what?

My order is city (including towns like Beaux Arts Village which do have meaning) then school district. There is no other division at the county subunit level.

My little white spots are just between cities anyway. You just want to have cities swallow up these little bits, so that then when chopped, no distinction is drawn about where you chop. Oh, and I think you have some cities swallowing up non trapped areas, rather than keeping them in a separate subunit, to exacerbate the matter. This concept of cities swallowing up stuff is novel. We have no precedent for such subunit expansion.

I have already agreed to abandon that. I have replaced it with the model we use in OH but using school districts instead of townships. It's a model for which OH gives precedent.

What I thought we were dealing with, is how to handle territory that was bereft of subunits. But then we had mission creep, and creeping municipal lines effectively. What you really want to do, is dump cities and towns into the dumpster, and just have school districts really, simply because we have some territory that is unclaimed, so let's deal with that, by having wholesale erasures. Well maybe.

Cities and towns remain supreme as county subunits (just not Census places - they don't exist in WA statute). The only question is what to do with the rest.

We are not making much progress are we?  

We would if you'd let me concede the points that I have, and then consider alternatives. What I won't do is put expectations of what SKEW will do ahead of defining subunits. It must be a completely independent exercise.

[Torie]

Can you change your green color to red or blue or something? I can't read it. Sorry.

[muon2]

Can you change your green color to red or blue or something? I can't read it. Sorry.

ok

[Torie]

Can you change your green color to red or blue or something? I can't read it. Sorry.

ok

Thanks. OK. What exactly are the open issues then, being specific as you can, with Torie wants that, and Muon2 wants the other, and the reason is this?

Skew is everything. This needs to be reversed engineered, so that we are confident that we can say, we have done what we can to reduce skew consistent with good maps, the types judges would like. As I have said before, that mostly turns on what is done within big subunits, not without. Thus the one bite rule, consistent with erosity patrol. That way, if the skew is not reduced within big subunits, that is because to do so, would tend to make the map ugly, and judges will not like that. What is done without, is mostly a matter of common sense, and practicality, and nothing else. Not much really turns on that as a partisan matter, absent a population accident, maybe, and maybe never, on a systematic basis.