Local vs regional road connections

[Torie]

Interesting questions. I was focused more about chops that are created by these "artificial" subunits, which are less salable out there. That is a very substantial concern of mine. So there is the issue of whether to create distinctions between real towns and cities, and these constructs, particularly cities I guess. I am not sure what to do about that. It is more an empirical issue. In all events, a 0.5% limitation is way too small. That is only 3.500 people or so and trivial. That is not going to do much good at all. I would think a limitation of 5%, or 35,000 people, is more appropriate. Tentatively, I would tend to think that the one bite rule will not apply to cities, but would to everything else, with the 5% limitation. That way, we do not get disparate results between those states that have little towns here, there and everywhere (NY has them taking in all real estate, as does Michigan), as opposed to states that do not.

[Torie]

Interesting questions. I was focused more about chops that are created by these "artificial" subunits, which are less salable out there. That is a very substantial concern of mine. So there is the issue of whether to create distinctions between real towns and cities, and these constructs, particularly cities I guess. I am not sure what to do about that. It is more an empirical issue. In all events, a 0.5% limitation is way too small. That is only 3.500 people or so and trivial. That is not going to do much good at all. I would think a limitation of 5%, or 35,000 people, is more appropriate. Tentatively, I would tend to think that the one bite rule will not apply to cities, but would to everything else, with the 5% limitation. That way, we do not get disparate results between those states that have little towns here, there and everywhere (NY has them taking in all real estate, as does Michigan), as opposed to states that do not.

At 5% it becomes a macrochop of the subunit, so you are suggesting (I think) that any simple chop of an unincorporated subunit, or neighborhood of a macrochopped city is subject to the one bite rule. Presumably that means townships in the Midwest, too. If so, there would seem to be no incentive to keep them intact.

No incentive vis a vis having the one little benign bite only. This is but a one course meal. The incentive then becomes, subject to erosity issues, to get the skew down. That is the point, although the main thing is the population accident issue, that could force a shift of 150,000 people or something, as whole hoods are moved from one CD to another. That is where the big game lies, and it may well end up stalking Phoenix for the next census cycle.

By the way, here is the neighborhood map for Milwaukee. Its hoods are so small, that it renders the hood concept next to useless. Now what? School districts? Well, there is this, which has hoods of a size that absent the one bite rule, will force a bridge chop, unless bridge chops are banned or penalized (which I oppose other than being not preferred). When does on decide the hoods are too small? The issue of a CD getting from Waukesha to Ozaukee or not raises the bridge chop rule again. Hoods will matter in Milwaukee for sure unless one bridge chops through Washington County. Granted with the one bite rule, then no matter what, and with bridge chops disfavored, there will not be a bridge chop done. Chopped Milwaukee will append to Ozaukee.

[Torie]

City planning areas usually work well. We used them in Detroit, and would think they would work in Milwaukee too. Detroit also had smaller neighborhoods that were bypassed in favor of planning areas.

OK. There goes the chop of Milwaukee absent the one bite rule.

[Torie]

On Muon's map, there were subunits in Puget Sound, offshore Federal Way and Des Moines, but not offshore Normandy Park and Berien, because those two cities have annexed the area in the water. The same thing happens along Lake Washington.

Including these areas creates contiguity, and may foster an impression of connected, for example in this case, with Vashon Island, which should only connect based on the ferry (and the ferry landing).

In Florida, the area within the 3-mile limit is included in their maps, and within their compactness scores. It is gamed, along with the Everglades.

This one confuses me some. We don't do compactness. We require bridge or ferry connections. If we have an instance where municipal water surrounds an area not within the municipality, and that area not within the municipality has adequate connections to another CD, I am leery of using the water to merge that water surrounded area to the municipality, but on this one my views are more tentative.

Erosity is a compactness measurement.

The judge in Florida just approved a plan that used the Everglades to bypass population.

Yes, but we don't use it. It is one of several advantages of using the highway cut proxy as a measurement of erosity. It allows for benign rather than partisan erosity - erosity that is really not about people, but geographic obstacles, or county lines which themselves are erose.

[Torie]

The population limitation is not going to work with respect to the one bite rule. Hoods in Phoenix for example often have 150,000 to 200,000 people. Yet encouraging chops of existing recognized subunits is unorthodox to say the least. But drawing clean lines in large subunits, is accepted. Nobody really cares about these neighborhoods. We use them just to have something objective. Great. But that is the place to get skew down as well as I have said, and where it is appropriate to get it down. What is the Golden Mean on all of this?

I propose the following rule having thought about it some more:

With respect to Subunits that are not Voting Districts in counties that are Macro-Chopped, one division of such Subunits between two CD’s shall not count as a Chop.  Each additional division of such Subunits between such CD’s shall count as a Chop.


Within cities and townships there are no internal Voting Districts. I understand that school districts elect school board members and wards elect alderpersons, and so forth, but even where we use those as the internal subunits, those don't count. All such subunits are not deemed to be Voting Districts. What are Voting Districts, are those entities as to which map drawers have traditionally given cognizance. Tradition! Ignore it at one's peril.

The erosity measurements remain in place.  That will prevent ugly maps that seem facially to be gerrymanders (by having say a prong chop into a neighborhood that in most cases will precipitate another highway cut). The one bite rule does not apply to cities or townships that are recognized Voting Districts that actually elect folks to local office.  It only applies to our artificial subunits that are put in place solely to have some objective way to draw the lines that precludes undesirable gerrymanders. My proposed rule allows for benign gerrymanders as it were, that get at once the SKEW down while not entailing erose maps.  It avoids the occurrence of the population accident nightmare that will enrage the opposition. To me, it is precisely the right balance.

I presume that for non macro-chopped counties, divisions of Subunits are not penalized at all, unless it causes additional state highway cuts. There really is not much partisan action attending non macro-chopped counties anyway.

[Torie]

How would you define subunits in Miami-Dade County?

I have no idea.

I also think you are too narrowly tied to a particular methodology.

That is too general a comment to respond to. I don't know your reasoning.

How would you in general define nested sets of units that districts may be composed of?

I am not sure what this means. If you are speaking about territory outside identified cities and townships, the ideas about trapped real estate and all make sense that you and Muon2 have batted about. Beyond that, whatever is out there that offers up units of about the right size, that have some stability in lines, and that are not too erose in shape. Ideally such subunits perhaps should be around 100,000 people or so perhaps. With larger sizes, the one bite rule helps to mitigate the disadvantages of that, while units too small perhaps don't constrain as much as they should.

[Torie]

Torie has been heavily advocating for SKEW reducing plans of late and it's an important concern. I've reviewed our MI scoring from a year ago and the thread is worth a reread (it's only three pages long). The exercise was heavily data driven with tables and some regression analysis applied to the scoring metrics.

One of the things we did was address train's strong concern that inequality matter. I share some of that concern and the solution was to add INEQUALITY to CHOP for that arm of the Pareto test. It provided that a chop was ok if it was making the inequality substantially better. We already were applying the MI rule against multiple shared chops between pairs of districts.

If the goal is to not penalize one-bite chops that lower SKEW, then the obvious solution seems to just add SKEW to CHOP. Couple that with the MI rule that no two districts can share chops with more than one subunit and I think Torie's goal is addressed.

Oh my. Ouch! First, inequality does not matter. It has next to zero public policy importance. It should only be used as a tie breaker at the end of the road, and maybe not even that. Perhaps both maps otherwise tied should be put into the eligible to pick pile.

If skew is added as a third prong to the pareto optimal test, we might as well go home. Messy gerrymandered maps with zero skew will be put into the eligible pile. Then what is the point?

I appreciate Muon2's desire for elegance, with every subunit equal in status and so forth, and every rule either a green light or a red light, e.g. bridge chops. But sometimes elegance gets in the way of the practical and the good, and that is the case here. I think my suggested language is the right balance. It will reduce skew without degrading the quality of the maps, and avoid the catastrophic scenario. Folks will be more accepting of accidental population accidents that materially affect partisan balance when it entails respecting the integrity of counties and cities, and to a lessor extent, townships. They will not when it comes to respecting the integrity of these artificial units, unless a map gets too erose.

I know that I am repeating myself. I won't change my mind absent a good reason to do so here, of if I have missed something, or whatever. Change I know is hard, but here it is really, really necessary, in my opinion.

[Torie]

I will read that thread now, if I can find it, or you linked it. Now you have me more confused. It does not matter who much a map with a better score on one parameter degrades another. Both maps make the cut. So a horrible map to get to a zero skew makes the cut, if there is no less horrible map out there that does.

I think worrying about whether the max variance between two CD's is 4,000 people of 7,000 people, is just ludicrous myself. It is not as if the lower variance map will be better at all, it is just a population accident. If two maps are otherwise precisely equal in everything, and one wants to consider only one map, sure then use inequality as a tie breaker. I think I would like to consider both maps myself, but life will go on if one by the roll of the dice is snatched away from me. There is no problem considering more maps, if it does not degrade their quality materially. Give the political hacks as much choice as possible, consistent with maintaining map quality. Why not?

I am totally baffled how the one bite rule that I described could lead to bad maps or abuse, but I will look at Michigan. The only empty zone is cities, and in Michigan, other than Detroit, and maybe Grand Rapids, no cities are really subject to chops of any size. That is the only real estate that is subject to my one bite rule in Michigan, chops into cities. There has been no chat of creating neighborhoods out of townships has there? If those will be sliced up too (I guess they will be come to think of it), if subject to a macro-chop, will then hey, if it gets the skew down, without entailing undue erosity, than great. That's the whole point! If skew conscious, and until now, not thinking that townships had hoods in them, I would have drawn the map to reduce skew anyway, consistent with satisfying my artistic eye. Now I substitute starring at freaking little roads, and such, rather than honoring artistic standards, but that's life in the big city, and I understand and accept that. I would not if it were guaranteed that I were drawing all the maps personally forever, I assure you.

Ok, read the MI thread. I notice nothing about creating hoods out of townships, but whatever. I get the policy point. I never understood that the pareto optimal test was more than two pronged. I thought skew and inequality were in the tie breaker category, and indeed I remember back then discussing that several times, and expressing un-interest in inequality, and wishing to place it at the bottom of the list. Now, I would prefer I think that it be off the list, but as long as it is on the bottom, even though a negative really, it's no big deal. It is rather unlikely to ever come into play anyway.

[Torie]

I will read that thread now, if I can find it, or you linked it. Now you have me more confused. It does not matter who much a map with a better score on one parameter degrades another. Both maps make the cut. So a horrible map to get to a zero skew makes the cut, if there is no less horrible map out there that does.

I think I see one point of confusion. I was not suggesting SKEW as an independent Pareto variable. I was suggesting that the Pareto variable be CHOP + SKEW. That eliminates the incentive to use a one-bite that does not reduce SKEW, such as protecting a residence of an incumbent.

I see. That is a somewhat less insane proposal. But that would have in the population accident scenario, potentially the lower skew map tied with the higher skew map. The lower skew map needs to win. Period. If by a series of accidents, one of them being due to a population accident that avoids any non Voting District subunit chop, one can use a chop to  accommodate an incumbent, well so what? If is very unlikely to happen, and probably there is another map with an identical score with slightly different lines, that will not. In fact there could be a ton of such maps, that vary be a precinct here or there. And no, inequality won't decide, because you can chop precincts to keep the populations identical, assuming that the two CD's in question, or one of them, was at the end of the population bell curve. Which suggests to me, that the map with the "best" PVI should win here, the best being the one that moves the PVI in the direction of the party at the short end of the skew stick, even if not into another skew category.

Am I right there that there is no penalty for chopping subunits for non-macrochops, assuming no more road cuts are in play? I asked that question before.

[Torie]

Well a flat ban makes no sense for subunits in counties not macro-chopped, because sometimes it may not be possible to avoid such a chop. So that rule will not work. For non macro chopped counties, it really does not matter much. I suggest another preference rule, in this case perhaps at the top of the list.

Below is the winning Michigan map. It looks pretty good to the eye, it has a zero skew, it has only 4 safe Dem CD's, no safe Pub CD's and two tossup CD's, so it has a most outstanding polarization score to boot (pity the safe CD's are not more symmetrical, at two for each party, but perfection alas is a metaphysical concept). It has no subunit chops except the mandatory chop of Detroit (and managed miraculously to avoid a Detroit hood chop due to one of those population accidents, this one benign), and the minimum number of county chops. In short, because it does not bring into play any of the rather long list of Torie angst items, the map is a triumph, and a splendid example of the sublime genius of, Muon2 metrics. I would put this map under your pillow, and keep it close at all times, and show it to your friends, particularly your Democratic friends, assuming that you have any Democratic friends. Well, I am a Democrat now.  Am I still a friend?  

So what are we going to do with Michigan now? Do the 2020 census version, or what? To touch this map, would be like interlineating Shakespearean prose, or slapping paint randomly on the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. It would be at once an artistic crime, and a thought crime.

Oh, you wanted to play with Washington. I forgot.

[Torie]

I have trouble reading your maps, and in any event I am in a state of confusion. So I drew my own maps here. I allowed how precincts were nested to guide my mouse in creating subunits on the map. Where a precinct was trapped, and no other jurisdiction seemed to have a claim on it, I merged it with a city. There are some trapped precincts in one city in the middle of another jurisdiction. There are precincts that are not contiguous. There is some unclaimed territory between jurisdictions. I left the problem areas in white. If a group of precincts got nested somehow crossing interior lines, I created a subunit. I don't mean for precinct nesting to be the tail wagging the dog, but it was a way to get going doing something.

So looking at the maps, tell me what you did to modify what I did, or how you approached the policy issues, and your reasoning.

Without the one bite rule, I want small jurisdictions wiped out – all of them. It increases the odds of a population accident.  Mass Lilliputian genocide must be the order of the day. With the one bite rule, I like small jurisdictions. In fact, I love them. It reduces the odds of having a chop. So with the one bite rule, I liked the unclaimed territory, and it should be used to get the population right without having to do a chop. Those little white areas in that category should stay there. Since I doubt I will change my mind on the one bite rule ever, well, you see where I am going with this, in this love-hate dichotomy.

But that still leaves where the lines should go on the unclaimed territory, where via precinct nesting, I just kind of arbitrarily created subunits. That is where I am most interesting in what you did that varies from what I did, and why.

I didn’t color in the cities around Seattle. That was extra work for no purpose.

 

 

 

 

[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?

[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.
 

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.  

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Torie]

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

[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.

[Torie]

I don't think I disagree with anything stated above. In part, that is because it is generalized. The devil is in the details. I was asking for where we disagree on the details. I laid out my point of view on these matters. Of course skew does not rule, nor does anything else. Everything is a balancing test. I came up with the one bite rule working with Phoenix. That is consistent with good maps (given the erosity constraint). It is probably what a judge would do. I would certainly do it as a judge. And I would not like a population accident to foreclose what should be done. I see I think on your map those little white bits there that were on my map, now colored in. Does that mean they can go in either adjacent CD? Is that the Stark County issue, where you have township subunits divided by a city, and I suggested a preference rule?  If so, how do our maps differ, other than that you appropriately added the towns?

As I said, what I am looking for now is a specific list of disagreements on the details. It seems when it comes to what the subunits are (as opposed for the units as to how to manipulate them into CD's), at least in King County, that maybe we don't have any disagreements, anymore. You take territory that is not in a city or town subunit, and put in another kind of subunit that is workable. School districts for such unassigned territory seems to be workable in King. School districts do not erase the lines of other subunits, even if they overlap them. So they are fragments of school districts in essence, in many cases at least.

I don't want to agree to anything anymore, until I fully understand it, and its implications. I don't want the estoppel thing to come up, ever again, if possible. I have been beaten up enough on that one already.

[Torie]

The pass over the mountains for LA County to Kern County gets closed sometimes too.

Sorry, Jimrtex, I don't like your map. It kills off entities wholesale. It makes the one bite rule all the more important, as it forecloses options like a good lawn mower cuts grass. Good policy is more important to me than implementing the perfect theory.