Fair redistricting: New York

[Strudelcutie4427]

I'd be interested in one of the open Democratic spaces on the panel if that's alright.

Its first come first serve so welcome aboard!!

[muon2]

I was actually considering using those exact divisions but decided just to go with four. I understand the importance of the groupings in most situations, but these sections are more just about having approximately equal numbers so I didn't think culture and history were really relevant in this context. Five might be a lot to do simultaneously. but if people prefer that, that's fine

It was not about culture and history. It was about the type of geography the states use internally, geography that the Census Bureau recognizes is different among the states. If you want to do more than judge by eyeball, that geography matters. If the panel finds that some rules help clarify that geography it makes sense to confine them to a given thread.

[cvparty]

I'd be interested in one of the open Democratic spaces on the panel if that's alright.

Its first come first serve so welcome aboard!!

Someone had already asked me lol, Becoming a Catgirl is taking Ted's place. I'm not sure if Tim is active, so Sol, you could potentially take his place...

[cvparty]

It was not about culture and history. It was about the type of geography the states use internally, geography that the Census Bureau recognizes is different among the states. If you want to do more than judge by eyeball, that geography matters. If the panel finds that some rules help clarify that geography it makes sense to confine them to a given thread.

what I mean is that the four groups were made just to quicken the process, it doesn't actually matter how they're grouped

[muon2]

It was not about culture and history. It was about the type of geography the states use internally, geography that the Census Bureau recognizes is different among the states. If you want to do more than judge by eyeball, that geography matters. If the panel finds that some rules help clarify that geography it makes sense to confine them to a given thread.

what I mean is that the four groups were made just to quicken the process, it doesn't actually matter how they're grouped

That's because you assume all states are the same as far as how the rules will govern them. I claim that there are subtle differences and states can be grouped based on those differences. How one can best chop a county to recognize the communities of interest inside is one of the most important differences.

[Sol]

I'd be interested in one of the open Democratic spaces on the panel if that's alright.

Its first come first serve so welcome aboard!!

Someone had already asked me lol, Becoming a Catgirl is taking Ted's place. I'm not sure if Tim is active, so Sol, you could potentially take his place...

I'll wait a day or two to see if Tim returns, just in case--but if not I guess I'd get his seat.

[jimrtex]

NECTA's are arbitrary because they largely ignore commuting patterns.

Conjoined Urbanized Areas were separated based on pre-2000 MSA's. Remember that before 2000, MSA's in New England were town-based. Beginning with the 2000 Census, urban areas were delineated based on continuous semi-dense settlement. This in effect would produce a Bosnywash urbanized area stretching from Portland to Richmond. To avoid this, the Census Bureau decided to separate urbanized areas based on the pre-2000 MSA's. NECTA's are based on the urban areas at their core. Because of the scale of towns and also patterns of development and settlement fewer non-densely settled areas are captured based solely on commuting.

This is not analogous to UCC's since even when there is a non-separated urbanized area grandfathered (see Livingston, MI) the proto-MSA can be captured based on commuting. But that is not possible with NECTA's, since Nashua is too big to be captured by Manchester and vice versa.

The NECTA boundary between Springfield and Hartford is clearly misplaced based on commuting patterns (there is only one town in Connecticut where people mostly drive north in the morning).

Since one of the prime responsibilities of RPC's is transportation planning, they inherently provide better definitions of communities of interest.

The UCCs are a refinement of the Census MSAs that we originally looked at for determining clusters of counties that represented a community of interest. Nominally the NECTAs are based on the same analysis by the Census as MSAs, at least as I read their defintions:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Just as there are MSAs where we might spot individual counties that might be better placed elsewhere, I have no doubt that we might find towns that look like they should go elsewhere based on state planning documents. We didn't do that with the MSAs as they became UCCs because that would remove the objective standard developed by the Census. However, if we wanted to take on the exercise of refining the NECTAs using the MSA to UCC metrics that would be a logical step.

It is not clear that analogous criteria were used. The Census Delineation tables do not define Central and Outlying towns for NECTA.

The reason we did not use MSA's (rather than UCC's) is that MSA's can include remote rural areas based on commuting. Adjacent areas with a modest city may be able to have enough local jobs that the percentage of commuters is low. Mille Lacs does not belong with the Twin Cities. If you rented a B&B during the Super Bowl that included transportation, you would likely find that the transportation was a dog sled. But it is possible that NECTA's include towns based on commuting.

The reason we did not use Central Counties (rather than UCC's) is that the Central Counties are defined based on the footprint of Urbanized Areas which form the "core" of a Core-Based Statistical Area. When the delineation of Urbanized Areas was changed in 2000 to be based strictly on continuous population density, existing Urbanized Areas were grandfathered in, and the separation was based on county lines associated with previous MSA's. Thus you have the South Lyon-Howell Urbanized Area roughly based in Livingston County (though bizarrely South Lyon is in Oakland County). So Livingston ended up as the Central County of a proto-MSA. The entire MSA was captured by Detroit MSA based on commuting, and Livingston was converted to an Outlying County.

But the UCC definition captures the two concepts of dense settlement and economic links measured by commuting. There is a community of interest because of the continuous settlement and cross-border commuting.

This does not work for NECTA's because (1) the Urbanized Area footprint does not match actual commuting patterns, and once the proto-NECTA are defined, they are too large to flip (or you ignored that they were flipped). There is no Nashua NECTA. There is a Nashua Urbanized Area, but the proto-NECTA was captured by the Boston NECTA. You used a NECTA division. But we didn't use Metropolitan Divisions for UCCs.

Just because a criteria is objective does not necessarily mean that it is rational or has utility. It just means that it can be judged by two individuals, and be scored the same way. Consider the three-point line in basketball. Different referees should be able to determine whether the shooter's feet were behind the line, and whether a basket is scored or not. We don't add style points or shot difficulty. In fact, teams often endeavor to make the easiest possible shot.

While it is an objective criteria, it is subjective whether there should be a 3-poiint FG, or where the line should be placed. Different variants of basketball rules have placed the line at different locations.

Let's assume we want a regional community of interest measure. In New England, counties are not that useful because government was never organized on a county basis. In New Hampshire, counties are only responsible for the sheriff, nursery homes, and prisons, functions that can not be handled at the town level. Counties have been abolished in Connecticut, and in most of Massachusetts. In both, court jurisdictions sometimes follow the former counties, but that is all.

Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts have well defined regional planning commissions recognized by statute (I don't know if your thoughts on this issue is affected by Illinois's lack of structure in this regard).

[jimrtex]

I believe this is the final table for NH. The SPICE scores allow simple comparison between plans. They aren't designed to pick a winner, but they are designed to weed out weak plans.

The usual way to interpret the scores is that if any plan has values that are in at least one case higher and in no case lower than another plan then it would be eliminated from consideration. I've highlighted those plans in the table. For example Starpaul20 has higher inequality and erosity than HCP while all other values are equal (red). Starpaul20 would be eliminated based on its SPICE scores. Similarly TimTurner and LimoLiberal are eliminated by muon2-A on chops and erosity (green). jimrtex would be eliminated by cvparty on polarization, inequality and erosity (blue). By using a smaller set of scores, such as just one of the chop scores or ignoring the polarization additional eliminations can be made to get a final competition set for voting.

Here's a table for the submitted NH plans as I fill each in. The erosity is based on the town connection map. The NECTA chop is based on the NECTA map reflecting Census groupings of towns. The key is S:Skew, P:Polarization, I:Inequality, CC:Chop (Counties/UCC), CN:Chop (NECTA), E:Erosity. Low scores are better.

Plan	-S-	-P-	-I-	-CC	-CN	-E-
Solid4096	0	0	5	1	4	29
Singletxguyforfun	0	2	4	3	2	21
TimTurner	0	0	2	3	4	30
cvparty	0	0	4	4	3	23
Sol	0	0	3	5	3	20
HCP	0	2	2	2	2	25
LimoLiberal	0	0	3	2	4	30
Starpaul20	0	2	3	2	2	27
Gallatine	0	2	7	4	2	19
muon2-A	0	0	2	1	4	28
muon2-B	0	2	1	4	0	24
jimrtex	0	2	5	4	3	24

Edit: Solid4096 was overlooked and is now added. It would also be eliminated based on SPICE scores from muon2-A.

Does this say that Gallatine could not be beaten so long as no one beat his erosity score?

The elimination is based on Pareto equivalency. Any plan that is best in a particular aspect is guaranteed to survive. Another plan might also survive if surpasses in one aspect but not in others, that is if the plan is on the Pareto frontier.

What is the rationale for this?

Is it like we can lease all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all the time, but we can't please all of the people all of the time, and conclude that if we can please one person all the time (or at least more times than all other persons) it is indistinguishable from if we can please more people on one occasion than any other. That is we can not weight the measures?

Would a plan that made Pittsburg town a district, with erosity one (assuming that Pittsburg and Atkinson and Gilmanton Academy are not connected) survive?

What is the basis for using discrete values for the various criteria and providing different resolution for each?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Voting to advance all the plans, except Muon-B.

[muon2]

Let's assume we want a regional community of interest measure. In New England, counties are not that useful because government was never organized on a county basis. In New Hampshire, counties are only responsible for the sheriff, nursery homes, and prisons, functions that can not be handled at the town level. Counties have been abolished in Connecticut, and in most of Massachusetts. In both, court jurisdictions sometimes follow the former counties, but that is all.

Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts have well defined regional planning commissions recognized by statute (I don't know if your thoughts on this issue is affected by Illinois's lack of structure in this regard).

I have no problem with regional planning commissions as a geographic unit. When I look at subdivisions of large cities I first look at their planning departments to see if there are accepted boundaries for such subdivisions.

traininthedistance suggested NECTAs when Sol started on an exercise similar to this one in 2013. I used them on another thread that same month, and hadn't heard a better suggestion to replace UCCs in the New England states. One aspect suggested by train was that NECTAs would avoid purely rural areas much like UCCs.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

cvparty


Sol



HCP


LimoLiberal


Starpaul20


Gallatine


Muon-A


Muon-B


Jimrtex


Dunno where Solid's map is. Also, remember that some of these maps are not eligible to be voted for, since they were eliminated.

[Strudelcutie4427]

cvparty


Sol



HCP


LimoLiberal


Starpaul20


Gallatine


Muon-A


Muon-B


Jimrtex


Dunno where Solid's map is. Also, remember that not all these maps are not eligible to be voted for, since they were eliminated.

Mine was missing from there

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Where was Solid's map posted?

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

This was my map.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I guess I'm part of this now.

Muon B > Sol = Cvparty = Muon A > Gallatine = Singletxguy > HCP

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'll be voting with a ranked ballot style I used last time.

[jimrtex]

Let's assume we want a regional community of interest measure. In New England, counties are not that useful because government was never organized on a county basis. In New Hampshire, counties are only responsible for the sheriff, nursery homes, and prisons, functions that can not be handled at the town level. Counties have been abolished in Connecticut, and in most of Massachusetts. In both, court jurisdictions sometimes follow the former counties, but that is all.

Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts have well defined regional planning commissions recognized by statute (I don't know if your thoughts on this issue is affected by Illinois's lack of structure in this regard).

I have no problem with regional planning commissions as a geographic unit. When I look at subdivisions of large cities I first look at their planning departments to see if there are accepted boundaries for such subdivisions.

traininthedistance suggested NECTAs when Sol started on an exercise similar to this one in 2013. I used them on another thread that same month, and hadn't heard a better suggestion to replace UCCs in the New England states. One aspect suggested by train was that NECTAs would avoid purely rural areas much like UCCs.

I had been reviewing your use of NECTA's in Connecticut, but like many things had never completed it. I had played around with basing areas on larger towns, and then adding towns based on commuting direction. You may get into a problem with secondary commuting chaining areas further out (e.g. let's say that people in Kankakee are commuting into Will (Joliet). This provides incomes for people to live in Kankakee, requiring more schools, Walmart's etc. This in turn provides some other people in Iroquois with jobs, and you could reach an never ending expansion.

Nobody commutes into Bridgeport. Bridgeport provides jobs to most people in the city (who have jobs) so it isn't a suburb, but has no suburbs either. Commuting among the towns further west is not strongly directed, in effect it is among exurbs if NYC that have grown to be non-concentrated employment centers.

I don't know that UCC's not including all counties is either a problem or a feature. Larger UCC's are probably large enough to force districts to be concentrated in them either in them or nearby. A significant purpose was to prevent creation of districts stretching outward from the edges of MSA's, either chopping the MSA or pushing inordinate amounts of more rural areas into urban dominate districts.

If there were defined rural communities of interest, then they might provide an alternative to county-based compactness measures.

[cvparty]

I'll be voting with a ranked ballot style I used last time.

dude WHEN

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

1. Muon-A
2. HCP
3. Gallatine
4. Sol
5. Singletxguyforfun
6. cvparty
7. Muon-B

[Sol]

cvparty suggested that I vote in place of LimoLiberal, since he seems to be a bit inactive.

Gallatine>Sol=cvparty>singletxguyforfun>HCP>jimrtex>Starpaul20>Muon-B>Muon-A=LimoLiberal=Solid4096

Lemme know if I missed any.

[cvparty]

lol sol you ranked every map
but anyway, Gallatine's map wins for New Hampshire! (mine comes in second cri)

Next is Rhode Island COUNTIES DON'T MATTER! You should really focus on towns. Big municipalities like Warwick can be split, but in a sensible way.

[Strudelcutie4427]

lol sol you ranked every map
but anyway, Gallatine's map wins for New Hampshire! (mine comes in second cri)

Next is Rhode Island COUNTIES DON'T MATTER! You should really focus on towns. Big municipalities like Warwick can be split, but in a sensible way.

I’ll add gallatines districts to the ms paint map I’m making

[Strudelcutie4427]

1. D+19
2. D+2

Deviation is 862

Here's my Rhode Island. I kept the more densely packed eastern part of the state together, and gave the more rural-suburban areas their own seat without Providence interfering as it does now. Only one city, Cranston was split, but this was done basically on the lines of West Cranston High vs East Cranston High. West Cranston is more suburban and upscale similar to smaller surrounding towns where as East Cranston is a bit more post-industrial and fits in well with Providence. This city chop actually makes sense since if any of you have been to Cranston, it's two different worlds between West Cranston and East Cranston

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Rhode Island plan

My non-partisan redistricting plan for Rhode Island, only Providence County is split, no cities or towns are split, and only Greenville CDP is split.

District 1 D+15.94 - 68.6 - 29.8
District 2 D+04.54 - 58.7 - 39.5

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Plan One: Newport and Bristol County+the towns of Pawtucket, Central Falls, East Providence, Providence, and Cranston lie in CD-01 (528,753; D+18.19). The rest of the state lies in CD-02 (523,814; D+2.78).