Local vs regional road connections

[muon2]

Road connections should be all weather roads in my opinion (they're snow plowed). So using the road over Tioga Pass in Yosemite is a no go in my opinion.

You were clear about the seat of government. I had a reading comprehension problem. I still think the county seat however should be used for the reasons I stated.

That's the problem with Pitkin. There are no all-year paved roads connecting Aspen to another county seat without passing through an intervening county. It works for jimrtex since he requires only contiguity and a direct connection that can pass through an unconnected county.

I would be inclined to treat Pitkin as a special case, due to the lack of any other alternative. There is an unpaved connection to Garfield that includes low priority plowing, but at least it is something more than just closed in winter.

[muon2]

There is often more than one valid path between county seats. If a county is chopped it matters which path is the connecting link. That requires selecting a particular point from which to measure the paths. That led me to select the state highway nearest the seat of government building as that point.

The alternative to selecting a preferred path is to automatically create links from a neighboring county to all pieces of a chop if there is a contiguous border with any regional (or local) connection. When we first looked at this a couple of years ago with OH as our subject, the extra links tended to generate too much erosity around rural chopped counties.

[Torie]

Road connections should be all weather roads in my opinion (they're snow plowed). So using the road over Tioga Pass in Yosemite is a no go in my opinion.

You were clear about the seat of government. I had a reading comprehension problem. I still think the county seat however should be used for the reasons I stated.

That's the problem with Pitkin. There are no all-year paved roads connecting Aspen to another county seat without passing through an intervening county. It works for jimrtex since he requires only contiguity and a direct connection that can pass through an unconnected county.

I would be inclined to treat Pitkin as a special case, due to the lack of any other alternative. There is an unpaved connection to Garfield that includes low priority plowing, but at least it is something more than just closed in winter.

I see. That's a judgement call. While we disagree on some of this, I do agree that two counties in the same CD should have a direct connection. We just disagree on the details of that. I would tend to ignore dirt roads. It might be better to just make an exception where otherwise the county cannot be appended to anything. That is sort of an obvious exception actually, whether there is a dirt road connection or not.

[muon2]

So, Torie it sounds like you would favor a combination of the blue, green and gold links on my map below. That would exclude the local connections (yellow) where there is no nearby highway to establish a link. You thought that jimrtex's definition of a direct route was unworkable. Do you have a definition of how much corner one can cut and still count?

In this map I have revisited the yellow links on jimrtex's map.

Blue are regional connections based on continuous state highways between two county seats that don't enter a third county. The dark blue links were those not identified previously, but meet my criteria.

Green is a all year ferry connection that meets the criteria for a regional connection.

Yellow are local connections that rely on local roads to establish a path between counties.

Orange are near connections based on state highways where the highway path cuts a short distance through a third county, such as at a corner.

Gold are connections equivalent to both yellow and orange.

Pink are contiguous counties without a connection.

Red squares are places with point contiguity.

[Torie]

It needs to be a direct road to the otherwise ineligible county that bypasses a major population center or county seat in the intervening county. It is not a function of distance. Defining a major population center than becomes tricky. Perhaps it could be defined as any nick that cuts through a series of precincts in the intervening county that is in excess of some number, say 10,000.

[muon2]

Precincts are tricky since they can change at the whim of the county. You could use the definition for an urban area from the Census:

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Maps of all urban areas are maintained by the Census Bureau so it is straightforward to check if a direct road passes through one.

[Torie]

Precincts are tricky since they can change at the whim of the county. You could use the definition for an urban area from the Census:

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Maps of all urban areas are maintained by the Census Bureau so it is straightforward to check if a direct road passes through one.

Perfect - I think. I thought about the precinct size and change thing myself, but failed to think of anything better. What is the density requirement? Would it pick up some territory that a reasonable person would consider to be rural? I would not want that metric to constitute a blockade that is too widespread. I ask, because the size requirement is so low, that in many cases just one precinct being involved would exceed it. Isn't there that other definition of an urban cluster or something that has something like a 10,000 threshold (which Hudson just meets, and has that long narrow erose affair on the map)?

[muon2]

You be the judge. Here is a link to all the maps of all the urban areas in the US. The natural thing to do is check the maps of NC munis in the vicinity of all the yellow and gold lines on my map. They are locally connected counties, so one just has to see if a route through other counties avoids any of those areas.

[Torie]

You be the judge. Here is a link to all the maps of all the urban areas in the US. The natural thing to do is check the maps of NC munis in the vicinity of all the yellow and gold lines on my map. They are locally connected counties, so one just has to see if a route through other counties avoids any of those areas.

There does not seem to be any way to pull up a list organized by state, much less a way to pull up a state map of such areas.

Ah, here is a set of NC maps. My very tentative view, just eye balling how much real estate is sucked up by these urban areas, is that your proposed metric is OK, with one caveat. The Charlotte area lines do not cut off the state highway link between Staley and Carbarrus, but it came close. So maybe an exception to the general rule, is that it is OK to cut through an urban area, if no more than one or two or three precincts are involved, at least within UCC's, where this policy issue would typically arise, and potentially frustrate the public policy purpose of the metric. The whole area is an urban area, but the cut is otherwise minimal and incidental to the main purpose of the highway, which is to directly connect either county seats or urban area populations between the two counties without either 1) a state highway connection, or 2) a local paved highway connection that is a direct link between urban areas in the two counties. By direct, I mean that the road design is to create such a connection with as direct a route as reasonably possible, as opposed to just wandering around servicing local rural homes.

I am less concerned about this 1-3 precinct exception for non UCC counties, because the cases where an urban area would effect a blockade for a nick cut that is for a state highway built to service connections between the urban areas of the other two counties are presumably going to be fairly rare.

I assume that the cut link needs to be a state highway, not a mere direct paved local highway. That is probably OK, but that needs to be clarified.

And then, at the other extreme from the UCC urban area exception issue,  we have the Clay County "nick cut" link.  State highway 64 as it traverses through Clay County from Cherokee to Macon just misses the county seat of Clay, Hayesville, and there are no other urban areas in Clay County. Yet the "nick" traverses the length of the whole county. That is a no go. That is not a nick. I am not sure what rule to fashion to deal with that. That the length of the nick highway cannot be more than a third of the length of the county measured from the two points thereof that give the longest length? Or something like that? And by measuring the length of the highway for this ratio, the rule would tend to penalize twisty state highway nick cuts that twist and turn over rugged terrain, which is a good thing I would think. An absolute highway distance parameter not based on a ratio might not work too well, given counties vary a lot in size.

[jimrtex]

So, Torie it sounds like you would favor a combination of the blue, green and gold links on my map below. That would exclude the local connections (yellow) where there is no nearby highway to establish a link. You thought that jimrtex's definition of a direct route was unworkable. Do you have a definition of how much corner one can cut and still count?

Torie never commented on my more technical alternative. I assume he is still exploring it.

[Torie]

So, Torie it sounds like you would favor a combination of the blue, green and gold links on my map below. That would exclude the local connections (yellow) where there is no nearby highway to establish a link. You thought that jimrtex's definition of a direct route was unworkable. Do you have a definition of how much corner one can cut and still count?

Torie never commented on my more technical alternative. I assume he is still exploring it.

This is your "more technical" set of parameters? Oh my. I have a headache. Off the top however, suppose the length of the border between two counties is de minimus, but has a direct local paved highway link, or a qualifying adjacent state highway nick cut? I am not sure that I like that one. Perhaps the best place to start, is what policy issues do you think are not adequately addressed by the system Muon2 and myself are now trying to fashion as described so far above, as a possible set of parameters to make this all reasonably work?

[jimrtex]

So, Torie it sounds like you would favor a combination of the blue, green and gold links on my map below. That would exclude the local connections (yellow) where there is no nearby highway to establish a link. You thought that jimrtex's definition of a direct route was unworkable. Do you have a definition of how much corner one can cut and still count?

Torie never commented on my more technical alternative. I assume he is still exploring it.

This is your "more technical" set of parameters? Oh my. I have a headache. Off the top however, suppose the length of the border between two counties is de minimus, but has a direct local paved highway link, or a qualifying adjacent state highway nick cut? I am not sure that I like that one. Perhaps the best place to start, is what policy issues do you think are not adequately addressed by the system Muon2 and myself are now trying to fashion as described so far above, as a possible set of parameters to make this all reasonably work?

If the adjacency index is less than 0.05, it is a near corner connection.

Think of two square counties, 5 survey townships square (30 miles on each side).

If B is north of A, then they are clearly adjacent.

But let's start sliding B to the west. until there is only a two township overlap (12 miles). That is 0.40.

Slide it another 6 miles, and there is only a 6 mile overlap, and the adjacency index is 0.20.

Now keep sliding until there is only a 2 mile overlap, and the adjacency index of 0.067.

Only until the overlap is 1.5 miles is the adjacency index 0.05.

If you are having trouble visualizing this, let me know, and I can show examples.

Or consider Madison County, Iowa. There are 7 adjacent counties. Which, if any would you have problems with as far as drawing districts between?

[jimrtex]

You be the judge. Here is a link to all the maps of all the urban areas in the US. The natural thing to do is check the maps of NC munis in the vicinity of all the yellow and gold lines on my map. They are locally connected counties, so one just has to see if a route through other counties avoids any of those areas.

There does not seem to be any way to pull up a list organized by state, much less a way to pull up a state map of such areas.

Ah, here is a set of NC maps. My very tentative view, just eye balling how much real estate is sucked up by these urban areas, is that your proposed metric is OK, with one caveat. The Charlotte area lines do not cut off the state highway link between Staley and Carbarrus, but it came close. So maybe an exception to the general rule, is that it is OK to cut through an urban area, if no more than one or two or three precincts are involved, at least within UCC's, where this policy issue would typically arise, and potentially frustrate the public policy purpose of the metric. The whole area is an urban area, but the cut is otherwise minimal and incidental to the main purpose of the highway, which is to directly connect either county seats or urban area populations between the two counties without either 1) a state highway connection, or 2) a local paved highway connection that is a direct link between urban areas in the two counties. By direct, I mean that the road design is to create such a connection with as direct a route as reasonably possible, as opposed to just wandering around servicing local rural homes.

I am less concerned about this 1-3 precinct exception for non UCC counties, because the cases where an urban area would effect a blockade for a nick cut that is for a state highway built to service connections between the urban areas of the other two counties are presumably going to be fairly rare.

I assume that the cut link needs to be a state highway, not a mere direct paved local highway. That is probably OK, but that needs to be clarified.

And then, at the other extreme from the UCC urban area exception issue,  we have the Clay County "nick cut" link.  State highway 64 as it traverses through Clay County from Cherokee to Macon just misses the county seat of Clay, Hayesville, and there are no other urban areas in Clay County. Yet the "nick" traverses the length of the whole county. That is a no go. That is not a nick. I am not sure what rule to fashion to deal with that. That the length of the nick highway cannot be more than a third of the length of the county measured from the two points thereof that give the longest length? Or something like that? And by measuring the length of the highway for this ratio, the rule would tend to penalize twisty state highway nick cuts that twist and turn over rugged terrain, which is a good thing I would think. An absolute highway distance parameter not based on a ratio might not work too well, given counties vary a lot in size.

You will want to look at the urban area map for Concord, NC.

I though that Muon2's concern was with placing Rowan in the same district with Stanly.

[Torie]

Madison County, Iowa? Never heard of it. Why did you pick that county?

Madison County does not present any interesting issues. All the adjacent counties are linked by state highways, except Clarke County, which does not have a qualifying local paved road link between the two county seats. It is not direct. So Clarke cannot be in the same CD merely connected by the Madison-Clarke border. And no, I-35 does not qualify as a nick cut highway, because it does not directly link an urban area or county seat in County A with an urban area or county seat in County B. Rather one needs to go east from Winterset to I-35 in Warren County, and then you make a 90 degree right turn and go south on I-35 until you hit Clarke. That connection is not a direct route between the county seats of Counties A and B. I-35 is not designed to link Winterest to Osceola as part of its route. I guess the I-35 thing makes Madison less than a totally boring example after all.

I understand what you wrote quite well (for once! ), and I still don't find much favor with that constraint. If there is a direct local paved road local link (very unlikely to be one in Iowa for a very narrow border), that is good enough for me. Ditto with a qualifying state highway nick with also a pavement connection (also very unlikely in Iowa, at least for a qualifying nick cut state highway).

Below are four adjacent counties. The only urban areas are the county seats, which are represented by the little squares. The thick black line below is a state highway. The thin lines are paved local highways. There is no direct paved road link between counties A and B, but there are paved highway connections. The state highway is a qualifying county nick cut connection. No matter how short the distance of the adjacency line between counties A and B, I consider counties A and B to be connected assuming a local paved road squeezes through whatever real estate is adjacent between the two counties, no matter how small that adjacent real estate might be. It just need to be wide enough to accommodate a two lane paved road, and such a road actually exists.



And here is a tougher example. Is this a qualifying state highway nick? (Assume that the length of the highway nick is equal to or less than a third of the longest length of the nicked county.) I tend to think not. The state highway still does not directly link the two county seats or two other urban areas. It is not designed to so link the two county seats. It is not direct. But I suppose reasonable minds could differ on that one. But I think the direct connection rubric is a reasonably straight forward metric to apply, and departing from it gets too complicated.



And here is a third example. What about this one?

[jimrtex]

Madison County, Iowa? Never heard of it. Why did you pick that county?

Madison County does not present any interesting issues. All the adjacent counties are linked by state highways, except Clarke County, which does not have a qualifying local paved road qualifying link. It is not direct. So Clarke cannot be in the same CD merely connected by the Madison-Clarke border.

For simplicity, we will consider Winterset and Osceola to be equivalent to their respective counties. This is particularly true for Osceola/Clarke. Madison has had an uptick in population that must include some folks living closer to Des Moines.

I'm not sure whether 1/3 of the quickest route between Winterset and Osceola is in Warren County.I'll assert that is not. The quickest route from Winterset to Indianola, and from Osceola to Indianola don't use the same route.

In any event, the county commissioners might decide that the fact that I-35 is a mile east of the county line doesn't have much significance.

What about Madison-Polk or Madison-Adair?

I understand what you wrote quite well (for once! ), and I still don't find much favor with that constraint. If there is a direct local paved road local link (very unlikely to be one in Iowa for a very narrow border), that is good enough for me. Ditto with a qualifying state highway nick with also a pavement connection (also very unlikely in Iowa).

Below are four adjacent counties. The only urban areas are the county seats, which are represented by the little squares. The thick black line below is a state highway. The thin lines are paved local highways. There is no direct paved road link between counties A and B, but there are paved highway connections. The state highway is a qualifying county nick cut connection. No matter how short the distance of the adjacency line between counties A and B, I consider them connected assuming a local paved road squeezes through whatever real estate is adjacent between the two counties.

I don't see the point of requiring the local paved road.

The adjacency index is 0.09, and the residents traveling from Alphaville to Betaburg are using the highway. They don't use the local paved roads, and if they even travel to Seton or Deep River, they will go some other way.

[Torie]

The one third test is about the length of the road that is in the foreign county relative to the length of the foreign county. Adair and Madison have a state highway link. Even if it were not a state highway, while the road has a couple of jogs, it is direct enough really. The road is designed to link the two county seats, and just had to avoid bisecting a couple of farms, where the land owners back when had pull, or something. No problem. (Actually it is because diagonal roads are unpopular in Iowa because everything is cut up into square sections, so if a road has to move a bit north or south to get to the next county seat, it needs to have these jogs to avoiding slicing the sections.) Polk and Madison have but a point connection, so that obviously does not qualify even if one did not have a pavement link requirement. Muon2 and I want to be able to drive on a paved road between the two counties, without having to go through a third county. Muon2 paraphrased that dude who said that metric was important to him. That I guess is quite popular out there on the Fruited Plain.

The population increase in Madison is almost entirely in Winterset is my impression. Next to no housing tracts have been built in the NE corner of Madison yet. But Winterset has some new subdivisions. Not to the south however, because that is where the Torie farm is, and Torie isn't selling yet.

[muon2]

In the example immediately above the local roads provide an internal path should only those counties be in a district together. I think that Torie agrees that when a district is complete one should be able to drive to any point in the district without leaving the district. The only exception is when an area is is isolated but part of a whole geographic unit. This would apply to cases like the parts of St John the Baptist parish on either side of the Mississippi. They are not locally connected, but can be together in a district if the whole county is in the district.

[Torie]

In the example immediately above the local roads provide an internal path should only those counties be in a district together. I think that Torie agrees that when a district is complete one should be able to drive to any point in the district without leaving the district. The only exception is when an area is is isolated but part of a whole geographic unit. This would apply to cases like the parts of St John the Baptist parish on either side of the Mississippi. They are not locally connected, but can be together in a district if the whole county is in the district.

Correct. That is my opinion.

[jimrtex]

The one third test is about the length of the road that is in the foreign county relative to the length of the foreign county. Adair and Madison have a state highway link. Even if it were not a state highway, while the road has a couple of jogs, it is direct enough really. The road is designed to link the two county seats, and just had to avoid bisecting a couple of farms, where the land owners back when had pull, or something. No problem. (Actually it is because diagonal roads are unpopular in Iowa because everything is cut up into square sections, so if a road has to move a bit north or south to get to the next county seat, it needs to have these jogs to avoiding slicing the sections.) Polk and Madison have but a point connection, so that obviously does not qualify even if one did not have a pavement link requirement. Muon2 and I want to be able to drive on a paved road between the two counties, without having to go through a third county. Muon2 paraphrased that dude who said that metric was important to him. That I guess is quite popular out there on the Fruited Plain.

Actually, I meant to ask about Guthrie and Madison, rather than Adair and Madison.

The dude likely had not fully thought through the issue, or was not thinking about using whole counties.

The population increase in Madison is almost entirely in Winterset is my impression. Next to no housing tracts have been built in the NE corner of Madison yet. But Winterset has some new subdivisions. Not to the south however, because that is where the Torie farm is, and Torie isn't selling yet.

Between 2000 and 2010, the 7 townships on the north and east county lines (near I-80 and I-35) increased by 893. Winterset and the 4 surrounding townships 727, and the remaining 5 townships on the south and west sides lost 70.

If you want to live in the country, you can have a job in Des Moines and commute to a small tract of land that would be too small to support full time farming.

[Torie]

The one third test is about the length of the road that is in the foreign county relative to the length of the foreign county. Adair and Madison have a state highway link. Even if it were not a state highway, while the road has a couple of jogs, it is direct enough really. The road is designed to link the two county seats, and just had to avoid bisecting a couple of farms, where the land owners back when had pull, or something. No problem. (Actually it is because diagonal roads are unpopular in Iowa because everything is cut up into square sections, so if a road has to move a bit north or south to get to the next county seat, it needs to have these jogs to avoiding slicing the sections.) Polk and Madison have but a point connection, so that obviously does not qualify even if one did not have a pavement link requirement. Muon2 and I want to be able to drive on a paved road between the two counties, without having to go through a third county. Muon2 paraphrased that dude who said that metric was important to him. That I guess is quite popular out there on the Fruited Plain.

Actually, I meant to ask about Guthrie and Madison, rather than Adair and Madison.

The dude likely had not fully thought through the issue, or was not thinking about using whole counties.

The population increase in Madison is almost entirely in Winterset is my impression. Next to no housing tracts have been built in the NE corner of Madison yet. But Winterset has some new subdivisions. Not to the south however, because that is where the Torie farm is, and Torie isn't selling yet.

Between 2000 and 2010, the 7 townships on the north and east county lines (near I-80 and I-35) increased by 893. Winterset and the 4 surrounding townships 727, and the remaining 5 townships on the south and west sides lost 70.

If you want to live in the country, you can have a job in Des Moines and commute to a small tract of land that would be too small to support full time farming.

That's interesting. I wonder if it was more on the north, or on the east. Guthrie is like Polk, but a point connection, so you know the answer.

[jimrtex]

The one third test is about the length of the road that is in the foreign county relative to the length of the foreign county.

Under my criteria, the 1/3 is relative to the length of the route.

Muon2 and I want to be able to drive on a paved road between the two counties, without having to go through a third county. Muon2 paraphrased that dude who said that metric was important to him. That I guess is quite popular out there on the Fruited Plain.

[muon2]

To clarify I had lengthy conversations during the 2011 remap with experts hired in the past by the controlling party. One repeated comment they made was that contiguity without connection (rivers, railroads, etc) allowed them to design some of their best gerrymanders. So, they suggested that one of the best rules one could enact to curb the power of gerrymanders was to deny them that ability.

[jimrtex]

The population increase in Madison is almost entirely in Winterset is my impression. Next to no housing tracts have been built in the NE corner of Madison yet. But Winterset has some new subdivisions. Not to the south however, because that is where the Torie farm is, and Torie isn't selling yet.

Between 2000 and 2010, the 7 townships on the north and east county lines (near I-80 and I-35) increased by 893. Winterset and the 4 surrounding townships 727, and the remaining 5 townships on the south and west sides lost 70.

If you want to live in the country, you can have a job in Des Moines and commute to a small tract of land that would be too small to support full time farming.

That's interesting. I wonder if it was more on the north, or on the east. Guthrie is like Polk, but a point connection, so you know the answer.

Actually it was a trick question.  Guthrie and Madison are adjacent, Dallas and Adair are not.

The Dallas-Polk-Warren-Madison is a true 4 corners.

The fastest growing township on a percentage basis is Lee in the extreme northeast, 60% between 2000 and 2010. West Des Moines extends south of the Polk County line, and Cummings is south of that and reaches the Madison line.  The numeric increase is small, from 468 to 747.  Along the section line west from the first I-35 interchange in Warren County there are quite a few single houses.  And further south there are some acreage developments (5 or 10 acre lots, around some ponds).

The largest townships outside of Winterset are Madison near I-80 and South near I-35.  They include Earsham and St. Charles, and increased from 1238 to 1411, and 1279 to 1457.

[jimrtex]

To clarify I had lengthy conversations during the 2011 remap with experts hired in the past by the controlling party. One repeated comment they made was that contiguity without connection (rivers, railroads, etc) allowed them to design some of their best gerrymanders. So, they suggested that one of the best rules one could enact to curb the power of gerrymanders was to deny them that ability.

Were they using building blocks such as counties at large scale, with townships if necessary to split counties?

My connection between Cleveland and Akron is comprised of whole census blocks and contains not mere paved streets, but interstate highways.  I even took care to include the parts of a cloverleaf so you wouldn't have to leave the district driving in either direction.

[muon2]

To clarify I had lengthy conversations during the 2011 remap with experts hired in the past by the controlling party. One repeated comment they made was that contiguity without connection (rivers, railroads, etc) allowed them to design some of their best gerrymanders. So, they suggested that one of the best rules one could enact to curb the power of gerrymanders was to deny them that ability.

Were they using building blocks such as counties at large scale, with townships if necessary to split counties?

My connection between Cleveland and Akron is comprised of whole census blocks and contains not mere paved streets, but interstate highways.  I even took care to include the parts of a cloverleaf so you wouldn't have to leave the district driving in either direction.

They used whatever they could get away with, since gerrymandering was their goal.