5 Texases

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Map:



Source: Screenshot from Daves Redistricting App

Some Data:



Source: Screenshot from Microsoft Excel, Data from Official Texas Election Results

Comments are welcome.

[Nyvin]

That rural northern district would be a heavenly Republican vote sink, haha!

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

That rural northern district would be a heavenly Republican vote sink, haha!

It carried Cruz to the win when all the other 4 Districts voted for O Rourke.

[UncleSam]

Lol you want to contain a state within and surrounded by another state? Why would anyone ever agree to this except to help Democrats?

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

Lol you want to contain a state within and surrounded by another state? Why would anyone ever agree to this except to help Democrats?

It's just showing the different regions of Texas. Nothing more


Fascinated by the '18 Senate race results among the 5 Texases/regions

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Lol you want to contain a state within and surrounded by another state? Why would anyone ever agree to this except to help Democrats?

Even if we were to go off of the notion that this was a serious state partitioning proposal:

Republicans who wanted to keep their Senate majority in 2006.
Republicans who wanted to deny Democrats a filibuster proof Senate super majority after 2008.
Republicans who wanted more Senate seats at any point in the 115th Congress or prior.

[Indy Texas]

Lol you want to contain a state within and surrounded by another state? Why would anyone ever agree to this except to help Democrats?

It could be like Lesotho.

[Epaminondas]

Lol you want to contain a state within and surrounded by another state? Why would anyone ever agree to this except to help Democrats?

If that's your only issue, Houstonia can easily be made to touch Louisiana, and Dallworthia Oklahoma.

[The Mikado]

Just because Texas can split up into up to five states doesn't make five the most natural number. You could draw a much better four state Texas split map, IMO.

[muon2]

I looked at this not from a political perspective, but a geographic, economic, and cultural view. Here's how I would create 5 regions. However, I think it works better with 3 regions, combining West TX with DFW and East TX with Houston.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

I looked at this not from a political perspective, but a geographic, economic, and cultural view. Here's how I would create 5 regions. However, I think it works better with 3 regions, combining West TX with DFW and East TX with Houston.

Going for lower population deviation should at least be a factor, even if just a loose factor and not a tight factor. Your Blue and Brown states look extremely underpopulated.

[Nyvin]

I looked at this not from a political perspective, but a geographic, economic, and cultural view. Here's how I would create 5 regions. However, I think it works better with 3 regions, combining West TX with DFW and East TX with Houston.

Going for lower population deviation should at least be a factor, even if just a loose factor and not a tight factor. Your Blue and Brown states look extremely underpopulated.

Yellow would be about 10mil
Teal would be about 7mil
Brown would be 2mil
Blue would be 1.8mil
Pink would be ~6mil

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

The Panhandle will probably try to secede from Texas once Democrats start winning this state.

[muon2]

I looked at this not from a political perspective, but a geographic, economic, and cultural view. Here's how I would create 5 regions. However, I think it works better with 3 regions, combining West TX with DFW and East TX with Houston.

Going for lower population deviation should at least be a factor, even if just a loose factor and not a tight factor. Your Blue and Brown states look extremely underpopulated.

Yellow would be about 10mil
Teal would be about 7mil
Brown would be 2mil
Blue would be 1.8mil
Pink would be ~6mil

That's why I thought TX would work better as three regions with a a roughly 2-2-1 split if kept entirely within the state. The DFW Metroplex is 7.5 M and the Houston metro is 7.0 M so they are always going to be oversized, and I generally don't like the idea of "city-states" unless there is good reason. I agree that the undersized areas should be larger, but in that case I'd cross state lines to put West TX with eastern NM, the western 2/3 of OK and some of SW KS. East TX would better fit with southern AR and northern LA.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

What would be the biggest city within the periwinkle zone?

[muon2]

What would be the biggest city within the periwinkle zone?

College Station at 116K. Bryan at 85K abuts College Station making it the 13th largest metro in TX.

Tyler would be runner up at 105K in a metro with a comparable size to Bryan-College Station.

BTW I'll be in your fair country this coming week, mostly near Munich.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

BTW I'll be in your fair country this coming week, mostly near Munich.

Alas, I live at the very other end of Germany. 😯
But perhaps you'll be running across the Clintons, who regularly visit the Oktoberfest.

[jimrtex]

I looked at this not from a political perspective, but a geographic, economic, and cultural view. Here's how I would create 5 regions. However, I think it works better with 3 regions, combining West TX with DFW and East TX with Houston.

If you allowed local option, West Texas would expand, and so would the Upper Gulf.

It would make more sense to have a Central Texas (San Antonio to Waco) and eliminate East Texas.

[muon2]

I looked at this not from a political perspective, but a geographic, economic, and cultural view. Here's how I would create 5 regions. However, I think it works better with 3 regions, combining West TX with DFW and East TX with Houston.

If you allowed local option, West Texas would expand, and so would the Upper Gulf.

It would make more sense to have a Central Texas (San Antonio to Waco) and eliminate East Texas.

I can see that. In what specific way do you think West TX should expand? I used the Pecos to the southwest, the Balcones and San Antonio to the south, and to the east the agricultural divide between the more fertile Cross Timbers and the less fertile Rolling Plains as described by the Texas Almanac. I didn't want to confine DFW to just its UCC or even its MSA, but in my few visits there seemed to be more cultural differences between Austin and San Antonio than between Austin and DFW.

[jimrtex]

I looked at this not from a political perspective, but a geographic, economic, and cultural view. Here's how I would create 5 regions. However, I think it works better with 3 regions, combining West TX with DFW and East TX with Houston.

If you allowed local option, West Texas would expand, and so would the Upper Gulf.

It would make more sense to have a Central Texas (San Antonio to Waco) and eliminate East Texas.

I can see that. In what specific way do you think West TX should expand? I used the Pecos to the southwest, the Balcones and San Antonio to the south, and to the east the agricultural divide between the more fertile Cross Timbers and the less fertile Rolling Plains as described by the Texas Almanac. I didn't want to confine DFW to just its UCC or even its MSA, but in my few visits there seemed to be more cultural differences between Austin and San Antonio than between Austin and DFW.

I'm going to place Washington, Grimes, Brazos, Walker, San Jacinto, Polk, Tyler, Trinity, Angelina, Nacogdoches, San Augustine, Sabine, and Shelby into the Upper Gulf state. Basically the area of settlement during the Republic. You will find more students at TAMU, Sam, and Steve are from the Houston area than DFW.

This makes the northeastern area non-viable so it gets attached to the DFW area which it has economic and cultural links to. With the shift to the east, then Llano, San Saba, Mills, Brown, Comanche, Eastland, Erath, Palo Pinto, Jack, Clay, and Montague will want to shift to West Texas.

It is 80 miles from Austin to San Antoniom vs. 200 from Austin to Dallas. People in Austin might drive to San Antonio for the airport, except that Spirit Airlines has entered Austin in a big way, so people in San Antonio may drive to Austin for lower air fares. People in Austin will drive to San Antonio to watch the Spurs, they won't drive to Dallas to watch the Mavericks unless, the Spurs are playing. The MLS team in Austin will be marketed in San Antonio. I-35 links the economies. It is not inconceivable to commute between the two, particularly if there are two-income families.

So if we take an essential spine of McLennan, Bell, Williamson, Travis, Hayes, Comal and Bexar. Add the suburban counties of Kendall, Medina, Atascosa, Wilson, Guadeloupe, Caldwell, and Bastrop. And then add nearby counties such as Burnet, Lampasas, Coryell, Falls, Milam. and Lee.

It would be local option Bosque, Hill, Limestone, Robertson, and Burleson.

Conceivably the Hill Country would want join Central Texas in bulk.

Most of the Trans-Pecos would probably join West Texas. You may be including it to connect to El Paso.

[muon2]

I looked at this not from a political perspective, but a geographic, economic, and cultural view. Here's how I would create 5 regions. However, I think it works better with 3 regions, combining West TX with DFW and East TX with Houston.

If you allowed local option, West Texas would expand, and so would the Upper Gulf.

It would make more sense to have a Central Texas (San Antonio to Waco) and eliminate East Texas.

I can see that. In what specific way do you think West TX should expand? I used the Pecos to the southwest, the Balcones and San Antonio to the south, and to the east the agricultural divide between the more fertile Cross Timbers and the less fertile Rolling Plains as described by the Texas Almanac. I didn't want to confine DFW to just its UCC or even its MSA, but in my few visits there seemed to be more cultural differences between Austin and San Antonio than between Austin and DFW.

I'm going to place Washington, Grimes, Brazos, Walker, San Jacinto, Polk, Tyler, Trinity, Angelina, Nacogdoches, San Augustine, Sabine, and Shelby into the Upper Gulf state. Basically the area of settlement during the Republic. You will find more students at TAMU, Sam, and Steve are from the Houston area than DFW.

This makes the northeastern area non-viable so it gets attached to the DFW area which it has economic and cultural links to. With the shift to the east, then Llano, San Saba, Mills, Brown, Comanche, Eastland, Erath, Palo Pinto, Jack, Clay, and Montague will want to shift to West Texas.

It is 80 miles from Austin to San Antoniom vs. 200 from Austin to Dallas. People in Austin might drive to San Antonio for the airport, except that Spirit Airlines has entered Austin in a big way, so people in San Antonio may drive to Austin for lower air fares. People in Austin will drive to San Antonio to watch the Spurs, they won't drive to Dallas to watch the Mavericks unless, the Spurs are playing. The MLS team in Austin will be marketed in San Antonio. I-35 links the economies. It is not inconceivable to commute between the two, particularly if there are two-income families.

So if we take an essential spine of McLennan, Bell, Williamson, Travis, Hayes, Comal and Bexar. Add the suburban counties of Kendall, Medina, Atascosa, Wilson, Guadeloupe, Caldwell, and Bastrop. And then add nearby counties such as Burnet, Lampasas, Coryell, Falls, Milam. and Lee.

It would be local option Bosque, Hill, Limestone, Robertson, and Burleson.

Conceivably the Hill Country would want join Central Texas in bulk.

Most of the Trans-Pecos would probably join West Texas. You may be including it to connect to El Paso.

I don't necessarily disagree, but it does seem like one has to be careful with which factors get the most weight.

For example, it doesn't look like you give as much weight to the proportion of the population and economy that caters to those who speak Spanish as a first language. That's one of things that struck me as a difference between San Antonio and Austin. I've not been to El Paso, but from second-hand reports that seems to be a significant distinction with the rest of El Paso. I was trying to use the use of Spanish as opposed to Hispanic descent as a cultural marker.

[jimrtex]

This is a thought exercise about a possible popular method determining 5 Texas states.



The green counties are those that have greater population than all their neighbors and could be considered as the potential core for a region. I modified my rule to exclude counties that were catercorner to a larger neighbor. This eliminated Hutchinson (Borger) northeast of Potter (Amarillo) and northwest of Gray (Pampa); and Scurry (Snyder) northeast of Howard (Big Spring).

I also conceived a metric that is 50% based on population, and 50% based on area. A state that had 40% of the area, but no population would have a score of 20%. Similarly, a state with no area, but 40% of the population would also have a 20% score. There would be no requirement that the final five states have equal 20% scores, but it would be expected that they would be substantial, perhaps at least 10%, and less than 40%.

The yellow counties have a score of 1% or more. 7 qualify largely on the basis of population, and one, Brewster, qualified on the basis of area. The intent is that cities like Fort Worth and Brownsville, might hypothetically end up in different states than Dallas and McAllen.

The green and yellow counties form the core of 38 proto-states.

In round one, each of the pink counties would choose one of the 38 core counties to associate with. There would be no requirement of contiguity. Approval voting might be used to choose up to five potential cores, followed by a Condorcet election make the final decision.

A Round 1A might be held to permit counties to switch regions. While a county might have preferred another core county, they might have a stronger association with neighboring counties that associated with a different core.

This will produce 38 regions, each of which would have their score calculated.

The 38 regions would gradually be reduced to 28, 21, 16, 12, 9, 7 and 5 regions.

In the second round, the 10 regions with the smallest score would be identified. The individual counties would choose another region, including other regions slated for elimination. If a majority of the population of both of two such regions choose the other, then they would be merged rather than joined to another region.

A round 2A could be held to permit counties to make a second choice. Counties that had not been included in a merger, might choose to join the merger. Counties that had favored an unsuccessful merger could make an alternative choice.

The process would be repeated until five states remain. There might be a possibility of dividing counties as a final step.