2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Michigan (user search)
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  2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Michigan (search mode)
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Author Topic: 2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Michigan  (Read 40819 times)
Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« on: February 06, 2020, 01:06:45 PM »
« edited: February 06, 2020, 02:16:56 PM by Tintrlvr »

I tried out a light D-favoring map as well and came up with the below. It's still only a 7D-6R map, and the 7D seats aren't all super-safe. Sort of a tough map for the Democrats to get something good out of, especially given the constraints on map-drawing. I ended up with a very different approach from the map above, and maybe that map is better. I felt bad about stranding Saginaw in a Safe R district, e.g. Might try fiddling around with this more.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/96a9fba0-1c69-4fea-bec5-d31421ca6b6f

Edit: Actually, inspired by other maps on here, here's what I think is a much better map. This one could be 9D-4R if the Democrats are lucky (the Grand Rapids district voted for Trump by less than 1,000 votes) and has 8 Clinton districts:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/96a9fba0-1c69-4fea-bec5-d31421ca6b6f
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2020, 08:36:57 PM »

Not sure how likely the commission is to draw a map like this but here is my attempt.



It somehow ended up as quite a Republican gerrymander (even if I did not look at partisan data and tried to generally keep counties whole). However most of the R leads are quite small. Only 4 districts are decided by more than 11 points. So it can also work as an R dummymander maybe.

Also, this map keeps 2 VRA districts in Detroit, at 53 and 48% black VAP

There should only be 13 districts in a 2020 map. You may also be using outdated population totals. That would explain why the two black districts are possible if you are using 2010 data and 14 districts.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2020, 08:38:50 PM »

I think this map is perfection:





https://davesredistricting.org/join/86c3575b-47c5-455b-bdef-ba4557967108

Two AA districts now (I doubt the population numbers by 2020 will be correct though,  probably both very under-populated).

MI-3 (Red) really should go west from Grand Rapids, not east,  the metro itself extends west into Ottawa, makes the most sense.

Love the Flint and Lansing seats, both competitive, both respect COI's in the area.

Tons of competitive seats on the map overall,  only five seats were won by either party by more than 10% (including the two AA ones),  with 3 within 5%.

This is my favorite so far.

I think double-splitting Wayne and Oakland between MI-9 and MI-12 as on this map is illegal under the Michigan rules. You can't have two districts that both split the same two counties.

Should be solvable by putting Pontiac in MI-09 and pushing MI-12 down through Mexicantown, allowing MI-13 to take up the rest of Wayne from MI-09.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2020, 10:12:15 AM »

why not this, compact, 10 county splits, COI preservation and 7-6 trump


MI-01: Trump +23
MI-02: Trump+9
MI-03: Trump +24
MI-04: Trump +21
MI-05: Clinton +1
MI-06: Trump +8
MI-07: Clinton +16
MI-08: Trump +4
MI-09: Clinton +42
MI-10: Trump +31
MI-11: Clinton +3
MI-12: Clinton +9
MI-13: Clinton +54

This map is decent overall, but you have two Wayne-Macomb districts and two Oakland-Livingston districts. Under the Michigan rules, you generally can't double-split counties like that. (I could *maybe* see a commission making an exception for the black seats if it seemed like the double-split was designed to preserve them.)
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2020, 02:38:13 PM »

Flint and Saginaw are a natural combination, as they're both manufacturing cities with similar sets of economic issues.

However, if you choose not to pair them, then there's one possible combination nobody else has tried yet, namely a Lansing-Saginaw district.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/fd58f3f7-afcc-4211-b3ce-3bb4d1df620a

It's not a particularly natural pairing, but it works better than a Flint-Lansing district, as Saginaw is small enough for them to room for both it and Eaton and Clinton counties.

Flint then goes with either the Thumb counties or with Pontiac and northern Oakland (I think the latter is slightly better, as Pontiac is similar enough even if northern Oakland isn't, but reasonable minds can disagree on this.)

The Thumb then goes with northern and eastern Macomb and the 9th and 11th are neatened from their current iterations but not wildly different. The two Detroit districts can be characterised as one covering the East side, Downtown and Downriver, and one covering the West side and inner suburbs to the north and west.

Livingston, Washtenaw and Monroe aren't exactly a natural community, but it is at least a coherent district based on counties on the edge of the metro area, and I think the Kalamazoo-Battle Creek-Jackson district works rather nicely.

That then forces Ottawa into the 6th and the 3rd compacts into an essentially rectangular shape. I opted to split the rest of the Lower Peninsula on roughly east-west lines, but some might prefer a north-south split.

So the Flint and Saginaw districts are both a bit awkward, but everything else works out surprisingly neatly. Trump won 7 of those districts, but in the case of the 5th his margin was only 0.9% and it practice it would probably return seven Democrats most years.

I really like this map, and this does seem realistic. The only place I would try to change for fairness is the Bay City area; if it's possible to put the split in a rural county instead, I think that's better. (I generally prefer splitting rural counties to urban ones because you're affecting fewer people that way.)
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2020, 12:05:15 PM »

Two versions of possible maps for the Michigan State Senate, based on 2018 population estimates:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/04f91558-5287-438a-8efe-aa9246cbef8a

https://davesredistricting.org/join/17d7f5ff-be35-4006-95c0-9cf51d2c0e52

They're pretty similar, with the differences limited to the Tri-Cities area where I couldn't quite decide which option was superior. As I'm depending on estimates, I tried to avoid having seats right at the top or bottom of the population deviation range, unless it was unavoidable. Although the 2016 block groups I drew it with don't always respect township boundaries, in actual fact the only municipalities I had to split were Detroit, Dearborn Heights (avoidable if you're willing to use touchpoint-contiguity) and Sterling Heights (I couldn't see a way to avoid it, but it may exist.)

Highlights worth pointing out:

  • On 2020 numbers, Wayne County could just about have 7 districts but in practice it isn't really feasible now and it won't be at all by 2020
  • Wayne and Macomb combined are entitled to almost exactly 10 Senate districts, which is a better fit than you can get with Wayne and any other one county. I acknowledge the problems with crossing 8 Mile Road, but it makes it a lot easier to maintain 5 VRA districts in Detroit.
  • I think the districts I drew in Oakland are rather neat, except for the somewhat ugly pairing of Troy and Pontiac (which I think was just about avoiding splitting municipalities.) Nevertheless, they are pretty decent lines for Democrats and would undoubtedly be controversial, especially if the final census numbers do allow alternate configurations. District 11 is drawn as a black-opportunity district.
  • Livingston and Washtenaw are now two large to share two senate districts, but Washtenaw plus Monroe works perfectly. Yes, this has a definite partisan effect, but I don't see a whole-county alternative. Swapping Ypsilanti for rural Washtenaw would probably make Republicans happy, but would look ugly (though maybe not worse than my district 22?)
  • I don't love my district 19, so if you're looking to avoid a Washtenaw-Monroe combination, hopefully the solution would improve that too.
  • I tried to draw a majority-minority Grand Rapids district, but the numbers aren't there for it.
  • It's not very competitive right now, but back in 2012 district 34 would have been great for Democrats. Incidentally, does anybody know why Lake County was so Democratic up until 2016? It really shows up on a map, but I have no idea what prompts it

In a neutral year, I suspect this would be something along the lines of 22-16 or 21-17 Republican, but a Democratic majority looks like a very hard ask - it would probably entail running the table in the Detroit metro, locking down the Saginaw-Bay district, winning the Muskegon district and somehow getting over the line in either the Jackson district or the UP district.

If you're trying to draw a map that doesn't guarantee a GOP majority, you should be able to create a Lean R (and trending D) seat and a Safe R seat (instead of two Safe R seats) out of districts 14 and 15 by concentrating one seat in the suburbs (Novi to the areas west of Pontiac) and the other in the exurbs.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2020, 04:20:24 PM »
« Edited: February 15, 2020, 04:40:46 PM by Tintrlvr »

I just drew a new version of a MI map, and I'm extremely satisfied with it. The goal was to keep very close to the rule of minimizing county and municipal splits while keeping COIs together, and I think this map does an excellent job of both while also coming out with a very fair partisan balance of 6-6-1. It also has two seats that are majority or nearly majority black (and you could fiddle around with the edges to get them both to majority black, such as by switching Hamtramck). The UP-Traverse City district has no county splits at all (!!!), and the Lansing and Flint-Saginaw districts share a de minimis county split but have no splits with any other districts. The Detroit metro has two majority/near-majority black Detroit+ districts, one district entirely in Wayne, one district entirely in Oakland, one district covering the exurban parts of Oakland and Macomb and one district containing the western/southern exurbs+Ann Arbor, which I think is the best possible COI arrangement in the Detroit area. The three counties of the Lansing metro are also kept together without combining them with any other major metro (no combination with Flint, Saginaw, Livingston County, Kalamazoo, etc.)

Without further ado, the map:




MI-01 (Upper Peninsula, Traverse City): 37-59 Trump, Safe R
MI-02 (Holland, Muskegon): 37-57 Trump, Safe R
MI-03 (Grand Rapids): 41-52 Trump, Likely R
MI-04 (Bay City, Port Huron): 32-63 Trump, Safe R
MI-05 (Kalamazoo, Benton Harbor): 42-52 Trump, Likely R
MI-06 (Lansing, Battle Creek, Jackson): 48-46 Clinton, Lean D
MI-07 (Flint, Saginaw, Midland): 48-47 Clinton, Toss-up
MI-08 (Ann Arbor, Monroe, Howell): 50-45 Clinton, Likely D
MI-09 (Pontiac, Royal Oak, Novi): 53-42 Clinton, Safe D
MI-10 (Oxford, Sterling Heights, New Baltimore): 36-59 Trump, Safe R
MI-11 (Dearborn, Livonia, Romulus): 51-44 Clinton, Likely D
MI-12 (Detroit West, Southfield, Inkster): 78-19 Clinton, Safe D (51% black)
MI-13 (Detroit East, Warren, Mount Clemens): 69-28 Clinton, Safe D (49% black)

Total: 6R (4 Safe, 2 Likely), 6D (3 Safe, 2 Likely, 1 Lean), 1 Toss-up

https://davesredistricting.org/join/28069751-857c-44d0-8e44-8abde1dc2f25

Edit: I realized I had an unintentional extra municipal split in Macomb County. I've fixed that on the DRA version, and it actually increased the black percentage in MI-13 just a hair (nearly to the point of rounding up to 50%!).
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #7 on: February 16, 2020, 08:29:46 AM »
« Edited: February 16, 2020, 08:35:37 AM by Tintrlvr »

I just drew a new version of a MI map, and I'm extremely satisfied with it. The goal was to keep very close to the rule of minimizing county and municipal splits while keeping COIs together, and I think this map does an excellent job of both while also coming out with a very fair partisan balance of 6-6-1. It also has two seats that are majority or nearly majority black (and you could fiddle around with the edges to get them both to majority black, such as by switching Hamtramck). The UP-Traverse City district has no county splits at all (!!!), and the Lansing and Flint-Saginaw districts share a de minimis county split but have no splits with any other districts. The Detroit metro has two majority/near-majority black Detroit+ districts, one district entirely in Wayne, one district entirely in Oakland, one district covering the exurban parts of Oakland and Macomb and one district containing the western/southern exurbs+Ann Arbor, which I think is the best possible COI arrangement in the Detroit area. The three counties of the Lansing metro are also kept together without combining them with any other major metro (no combination with Flint, Saginaw, Livingston County, Kalamazoo, etc.)

Without further ado, the map:




MI-01 (Upper Peninsula, Traverse City): 37-59 Trump, Safe R
MI-02 (Holland, Muskegon): 37-57 Trump, Safe R
MI-03 (Grand Rapids): 41-52 Trump, Likely R
MI-04 (Bay City, Port Huron): 32-63 Trump, Safe R
MI-05 (Kalamazoo, Benton Harbor): 42-52 Trump, Likely R
MI-06 (Lansing, Battle Creek, Jackson): 48-46 Clinton, Lean D
MI-07 (Flint, Saginaw, Midland): 48-47 Clinton, Toss-up
MI-08 (Ann Arbor, Monroe, Howell): 50-45 Clinton, Likely D
MI-09 (Pontiac, Royal Oak, Novi): 53-42 Clinton, Safe D
MI-10 (Oxford, Sterling Heights, New Baltimore): 36-59 Trump, Safe R
MI-11 (Dearborn, Livonia, Romulus): 51-44 Clinton, Likely D
MI-12 (Detroit West, Southfield, Inkster): 78-19 Clinton, Safe D (51% black)
MI-13 (Detroit East, Warren, Mount Clemens): 69-28 Clinton, Safe D (49% black)

Total: 6R (4 Safe, 2 Likely), 6D (3 Safe, 2 Likely, 1 Lean), 1 Toss-up

https://davesredistricting.org/join/28069751-857c-44d0-8e44-8abde1dc2f25

Edit: I realized I had an unintentional extra municipal split in Macomb County. I've fixed that on the DRA version, and it actually increased the black percentage in MI-13 just a hair (nearly to the point of rounding up to 50%!).


I think that's probably the best effort I've seen yet in this thread.

I particularly like that MI-2 - it's very hard to make a doughnut seat that doesn't look incredibly awkward, but you pulled it off and it's a good Grand Rapids exurbs seat.

Thanks! I will say it's definitely not necessary to draw the Grand Rapids area that way, though I personally think this is the best COI version because it keeps the Grand Rapids urban+suburban areas together with also keeping rural/small city western Michigan together. I often like donut maps because they allow you to keep a clear separation of urban/suburban areas from rural areas, which have very different interests.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #8 on: February 16, 2020, 09:42:17 AM »
« Edited: February 16, 2020, 09:45:35 AM by Tintrlvr »

I just drew a new version of a MI map, and I'm extremely satisfied with it. The goal was to keep very close to the rule of minimizing county and municipal splits while keeping COIs together, and I think this map does an excellent job of both while also coming out with a very fair partisan balance of 6-6-1. It also has two seats that are majority or nearly majority black (and you could fiddle around with the edges to get them both to majority black, such as by switching Hamtramck). The UP-Traverse City district has no county splits at all (!!!), and the Lansing and Flint-Saginaw districts share a de minimis county split but have no splits with any other districts. The Detroit metro has two majority/near-majority black Detroit+ districts, one district entirely in Wayne, one district entirely in Oakland, one district covering the exurban parts of Oakland and Macomb and one district containing the western/southern exurbs+Ann Arbor, which I think is the best possible COI arrangement in the Detroit area. The three counties of the Lansing metro are also kept together without combining them with any other major metro (no combination with Flint, Saginaw, Livingston County, Kalamazoo, etc.)

Without further ado, the map:

MI-01 (Upper Peninsula, Traverse City): 37-59 Trump, Safe R
MI-02 (Holland, Muskegon): 37-57 Trump, Safe R
MI-03 (Grand Rapids): 41-52 Trump, Likely R
MI-04 (Bay City, Port Huron): 32-63 Trump, Safe R
MI-05 (Kalamazoo, Benton Harbor): 42-52 Trump, Likely R
MI-06 (Lansing, Battle Creek, Jackson): 48-46 Clinton, Lean D
MI-07 (Flint, Saginaw, Midland): 48-47 Clinton, Toss-up
MI-08 (Ann Arbor, Monroe, Howell): 50-45 Clinton, Likely D
MI-09 (Pontiac, Royal Oak, Novi): 53-42 Clinton, Safe D
MI-10 (Oxford, Sterling Heights, New Baltimore): 36-59 Trump, Safe R
MI-11 (Dearborn, Livonia, Romulus): 51-44 Clinton, Likely D
MI-12 (Detroit West, Southfield, Inkster): 78-19 Clinton, Safe D (51% black)
MI-13 (Detroit East, Warren, Mount Clemens): 69-28 Clinton, Safe D (49% black)

Total: 6R (4 Safe, 2 Likely), 6D (3 Safe, 2 Likely, 1 Lean), 1 Toss-up

https://davesredistricting.org/join/28069751-857c-44d0-8e44-8abde1dc2f25

Edit: I realized I had an unintentional extra municipal split in Macomb County. I've fixed that on the DRA version, and it actually increased the black percentage in MI-13 just a hair (nearly to the point of rounding up to 50%!).


I think that's probably the best effort I've seen yet in this thread.

I particularly like that MI-2 - it's very hard to make a doughnut seat that doesn't look incredibly awkward, but you pulled it off and it's a good Grand Rapids exurbs seat.

Thanks! I will say it's definitely not necessary to draw the Grand Rapids area that way, though I personally think this is the best COI version because it keeps the Grand Rapids urban+suburban areas together with also keeping rural/small city western Michigan together. I often like donut maps because they allow you to keep a clear separation of urban/suburban areas from rural areas, which have very different interests.

I also like most of the map, though I personally think Donuts don't really work on the congressional level. That said, another advantage of the map is CD's 2 and 3 are in a 'closed ecosystem' so if you have different goals for the seat you can adjust as needed. If you want another cooperative (GOP leaning) seat to counteract the weaker Clinton seats in the east, you could do Muskegon+Newaygo +Grand  Rapids part of Kent. If you just don't like Donuts you could put all of Ottawa or Montcalm+Ionia+Gratiot and then cut away the redder parts of Kent to compensate. It's a great map and template to base future work off of.

I had drawn Muskegon+Newaygo+Mecosta+City of Grand Rapids as an alternative (definitely favorable to the Democrats) map. That version actually voted for Clinton by a few tenths of a percent. But, agreed, really it's just a matter of fiddling around with those two districts if you don't like the donut.

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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #9 on: February 16, 2020, 12:16:12 PM »
« Edited: February 16, 2020, 12:19:40 PM by Tintrlvr »

Slight tweak to get that MI-13 to 49.9% black: strip out St. Clair Shores and the remaining bit of Harrison Township, add in all of Clinton Township bar five precincts in the north-west. It makes the map look a little uglier, but it splits fewer municipalities and it doesn't really look worse on a map than the Dearborn/Dearborn Heights split does.

I got it to 50% by cutting into Clinton Township along the west instead of the northwest (as the NW corner actually has a fairly high black population).

As an aside, it's shocking how Republican St Clair Shores is. In some precincts, the white vote has to be nearly 80% Trump given the black population, which is almost unheard of for a suburb outside of the Deep South.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #10 on: February 17, 2020, 08:16:42 AM »

"Flint gets its own district" is a particularly euphemistic way of describing a fairly obvious attempt at cracking.

Imagine seriously defending the idea that Saginaw has more of a COI with the west coast of Michigan than with Flint.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #11 on: February 17, 2020, 03:58:08 PM »

I think more than anything what this thread really needs is a definition of what exactly the "CoI's" in Michigan really are supposed to be.  

Because looking over the maps here they seem to be all over the place.

Here's a rough attempt at defining COIs. First group are county groupings that should never be split apart because they form a clear combined COI. There are only four of these, standing alone:

Detroit Metro (Wayne, Monroe, Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw, Livingston): There should be six seats entirely contained in these six counties with no overlap with the rest of the state (other than needing to pull in just a few thousand voters from somewhere else on the 2016 numbers)

Lansing Metro (Ingham, Eaton, Clinton): These counties should all be in the same district and treated as one county.

The Thumb (Saint Clair, Lapeer, Tuscola, Sanilac, Huron): These counties should all be in the same district and treated as one county.

The Upper Peninsula: These counties should all be in the same district and treated as one county (this maybe goes without saying, haven't seen anyone propose splitting it up).

After those groupings, it becomes a bit harder because you're talking about metro areas that are mostly self-contained in one county so could go a few different directions. But there are still obvious groups, like Genessee with Saginaw, Calhoun with Jackson (which forms almost exactly one district with the Lansing metro described above so is ideal; also see my map that shows that this grouping with Genessee/Saginaw/Shiawassee/Midland is a perfect pair of two districts, population-wise, needing only one de minimis split), Kent probably best paired with eastern Ottawa to keep Grand Rapids suburbs with the city, etc.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #12 on: February 17, 2020, 04:04:52 PM »

"Flint gets its own district" is a particularly euphemistic way of describing a fairly obvious attempt at cracking.

Imagine seriously defending the idea that Saginaw has more of a COI with the west coast of Michigan than with Flint.
Not with western MI, with the tri-cities area.  Saginaw-Flint breaks up the tri-cities area.

What's so special about that grouping in particular? They don't have anything more in common with each other than Saginaw has with Flint. Less, generally, as there are significant demographic differences. For example, Bay City and Midland are nearly 100% white while Saginaw has a large black population. Saginaw is also historically an industrial city while Bay City is a shipping center and Midland is more high tech and services.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,284


« Reply #13 on: February 17, 2020, 04:16:27 PM »

"Flint gets its own district" is a particularly euphemistic way of describing a fairly obvious attempt at cracking.

Imagine seriously defending the idea that Saginaw has more of a COI with the west coast of Michigan than with Flint.
Not with western MI, with the tri-cities area.  Saginaw-Flint breaks up the tri-cities area.

What's so special about that grouping in particular? They don't have anything more in common with each other than Saginaw has with Flint. Less, generally, as there are significant demographic differences. For example, Bay City and Midland are nearly 100% white while Saginaw has a large black population. Saginaw is also historically an industrial city while Bay City is a shipping center and Midland is more high tech and services.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saginaw,_Midland,_and_Bay_City_metropolitan_area
Tri cities are a region of MI, Flint and Saginaw are two different cities that both happen to have black people.  Race doesn't make a COI, but it matters for VRA purposes in Detroit.

It's explicitly not a region based on that link. Midland, Saginaw and Bay City are all separate MSAs. The "Central Michigan" region as defined by the state of Michigan also includes Flint as well as Mount Pleasant and some rural counties.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #14 on: February 17, 2020, 06:20:42 PM »



2012/2016 composite

Well I listened to complaints and made adjustments, now there's a Flint-Saginaw-Midland district which votes Dem in the last 2 elections, albeit narrowly in 2016.  Now the Thumb is part of a Huron Coast district.  I still prefer the previous map, but this one would be more passable being 7-6.  

For what it's worth, you appear to be using 2010 census figures (thus the larger Grand Rapids-based district than my map, e.g., and the bigger split of Lenawee), which may be skewing the map in other ways. 2016 estimates are not the same as what will be reported in the 2020 census, of course, but they should be closer to 2020 than 2010 figures would be.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #15 on: February 17, 2020, 10:01:24 PM »

The recognized tri-cities community is Saginaw-Midland-Bay City, but most groupers also throw in Flint because of the regions economic ties. They are all oriented along route 85, and all are at least somewhat postindustrial. They all are distinct from the rural thumb, whose most similar cousins are across the bay in upper Michigan (all residents I have chat with want something like this), all distinct from the universities to their west, and distinct from the Detroit suburbs to their south.

The point of keeping counties whole is that counties are the default COI. If there is no better or clearer COI, the the county level is best observed. If there is a better COI, than it comes before the county. If there are lots of counties like in Michigan, you get cross-county COIs that deserve the same respect as inter-county ones. We have cases here where those outside of Wayne have clear cross-county COIs: rural Thumb+Upland, the route 85 tri-cities corridor, the central universities, and the Wayne exurbs.
Well the tri cities and Flint can't be together.  You can do Tri Cities or Flint-Saginaw.  If Flint isn't paired with Saginaw it can go with Lansing or the Thumb.

And Lansing and the thumb have better partners than Flint. Remember how I said that the rural, Lakeshore oriented, thumb is best paired with the upstate. How it is something every Michigan resident I have consulted with agrees to? Hell, Even
 Dave Wasserman in a hypothetical map linked the two. Well, we cannot link the two via water across the bay. Therefore, going through Bay City is the easiest solution. Guess what? Flint + Saginaw + Midland is a viable cd, with a bit more tacked on of course.

Why can't you go across Saginaw Bay?

"Districts shall be geographically contiguous. Island areas are considered to be contiguous by land to the county of which they are a part."

Doesn't this say that counties encompass all offshore waters, including any islands.

I agree in theory, and I don't think this is a completely crazy idea as it does keep genuinely rural areas together and separate from cities, but I think it would meet with a fair amount of resistance.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #16 on: February 19, 2020, 12:53:45 PM »

So after everyone discussed COIs a while back, I decided to explore a map that was mainly based on COIs. It ended up unusual. The 'guiding' districts in this case were CD5 which has all of the tri-cities and Flint, CD4 which crosses the Saginaw river to link the Thump and the Upstate, CD1 which actually gets all of the non-urbanized west coast, and CD7 which puts all the notable central MI college towns together. CD9 gets the Grosse Pointe's because their local lines cross the border of Wayne and Macomb. One of the AA seats has all the arabs, as I tend to prefer when possible. The main victim of the mid-state getting their COI's is CD8, but it isn't affected too much as far as pop distribution is concerned.

Trump won 7 seats when he won by less than 1%. When whitmer won by 10% she no only got the 6 Clinton seats and the swingy Macomb seat, she also got the Grand Rapids seat by <3K votes.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/c7f30e42-14ef-444d-a14b-2e7b25639720





Is it possible to put Shiawassee with Lansing? I think that would look neater and be a bit better from a COI perspective.

The rest of the map is decent, but this is on the 2010 figures. If you pull up the 2016 map, you get 2016 presidential results with updated Census estimates.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #17 on: February 19, 2020, 01:31:42 PM »

As it happens, I just finished drawing a similar map based off a district jumping over the Saginaw River:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/38383e2f-7132-4b5e-89b0-7b8c8bdcd477

The major differences to Oryxslayer's map are that Shiawassee goes in the Lansing district and Calhoun mostly in the Kalamazoo district and that Grand Rapids district goes west instead of east.

Clinton wins six districts in this map, but two of them only narrowly. Obama carried ten of them in 2008 (though not the Grand Rapids district, which these days is probably the seventh best Democratic prospect.)

I think this map has some positives to it, but overall I think it shows the problem of a Thumb/Huron Shore district, which is that the two areas aren't really big enough for a congressional district. To get the necessary population, you either need to reach into exurban Macomb, or the Tri-Cities area, or well into the interior of northern Michigan, or some combination thereof. And if you're going to do that, why not just go the whole hog and tack the two areas on to separate districts?

I think the Macomb district is still the Democrats' 7th potential seat on this map (despite being stronger for Trump), but both the Grand Rapids seat and the Kalamazoo-Battle Creek-Jackson seat have some potential. Long-term, I can't see Macomb doing anything but boomeranging back towards the Democrats, demographically, as the black population is booming in southern Macomb, and fundamentally Macomb is still a suburban county.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #18 on: February 19, 2020, 01:50:54 PM »
« Edited: February 19, 2020, 01:55:51 PM by Tintrlvr »

I think that's a significant improvement, though it's hard to tell how closely Bay City is being cut. I was hoping by putting Shiawassee in the Lansing seat you could pull the Lansing seat south from Mount Pleasant, though, which is a long northern appendage now (though I suppose I see the reasoning behind putting a smaller college town with Lansing). Ultimately Shiawassee is fine with either Flint or Lansing, though. I don't love it with Detroit exurbs, though, because Shiawassee has an interstate connection to both Lansing and Flint (and so has some exurbs of each on the edges) but doesn't have any highway connection to Livingston County.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #19 on: February 20, 2020, 03:26:45 PM »

Monroe + Southern Wayne is a pairing that seems very natural to me and I was wondering why it was so rare in the maps that were posted so far.

The challenge I can see is to draw a Monroe + Southern Wayne district without splitting the Middle Eastern communities in e.g. Dearborn, Livonia and other areas.

Monroe is funny. The population along the border with Wayne is quite low. Most of the population is in the southern part of the county and consists of suburbs/exurbs of Toledo (over the border in Ohio), plus the small city of Monroe itself. There is some outer Detroit metro spillover in the north of the county, but it doesn't pair naturally with inner suburbs deep in Wayne. It pairs much better with Washtenaw, which is also an area connected to but peripheral to the Detroit metro.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #20 on: February 21, 2020, 01:34:10 PM »
« Edited: February 21, 2020, 01:38:40 PM by Tintrlvr »

As it happens, I just finished drawing a similar map based off a district jumping over the Saginaw River:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/38383e2f-7132-4b5e-89b0-7b8c8bdcd477

The major differences to Oryxslayer's map are that Shiawassee goes in the Lansing district and Jackson mostly in the Kalamazoo district and that Grand Rapids district goes west instead of east.

Clinton wins six districts in this map, but two of them only narrowly. Obama carried ten of them in 2008 (though not the Grand Rapids district, which these days is probably the seventh best Democratic prospect.)

I think this map has some positives to it, but overall I think it shows the problem of a Thumb/Huron Shore district, which is that the two areas aren't really big enough for a congressional district. To get the necessary population, you either need to reach into exurban Macomb, or the Tri-Cities area, or well into the interior of northern Michigan, or some combination thereof. And if you're going to do that, why not just go the whole hog and tack the two areas on to separate districts?
How much population is north of Muskegon-Kent-Clinton-Midland-Bay? Can you get two districts, even coming further south without touching those urban counties.

Assuming that you treat Gratiot and Ionia as the rest of the boundary, just under 1.2m people according to the 2016 estimates. So not that much more than a district and a half.

I was wondering whether it is even possible to draw two districts, where the largest L.P. city is Traverse City (but I see even that would exclude Mt.Pleasant). But if we wanted to make those two the largest cities are we still short?

If so, then there may be three acceptable options:

(1) Take Muskegon (the UP district then goes down the Huron shore)
(2) Take Midland and ... (accept that are combining COI)
(3) Sneak across to take the thumb (but I'm not too keen on going down to St.Clair) which will be a significant chunk of the population).

Not-acceptable.
(4) Into Kent
(5) Into Clinton


Option 1 is probably not feasible - if you add Muskegon, Ionia and Gratiot to the northern group then you're still short about 50k from the necessary population for two seats, so you need to reach into the fringes of Ottawa/Kent/Clinton/Midland/Bay or some combination thereof to get the numbers up. And if the 1st district is going right down to Muskegon, then there's only room for the LP part of it to be one county wide (and even then you need to lose 10k people.)

Option 3 is also cutting a COI, because whilst you can draw a map putting Bay City in with Flint and the rest of Tri-Cities, realistically it's probably not going to happen because of the road contiguity issue.

You could go into Barry County from Ionia. That's messy and dipping pretty far south, but Barry County is enough to make up the difference and is pretty rural.

That said, I'm not sure why Muskegon would be preferable to Midland and/or Bay. Muskegon is a bigger metro than either.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #21 on: September 16, 2021, 03:55:35 PM »


They're offline now. They seem to have finished (?) drawing the two Detroit CDs in Wayne County plus started drawing a third district in southern Oakland County. Interestingly, they did not go into Oakland County at all for the Detroit CDs it seems.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
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Posts: 5,284


« Reply #22 on: October 01, 2021, 02:45:53 PM »

Rather than this stuff, why don't we just all switch to the Iowa system? Put in some parameters and the computer will spit out a map. Legislature votes yes or no. If no, try again and keep trying until you get one the legislature likes. (IA only tries three times before the lege can draw their own, but just make it keep going until you agree with the computer).

I'm growing unsatisfied with human amateurs on redistricting commissions.

The Iowa system works only because Iowa's demography is very simple from a redistricting perspective. It would be much harder to implement the Iowa system in almost any other state, and you might churn out maps that looked insane from a human perspective.
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Tintrlvr
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,284


« Reply #23 on: October 08, 2021, 11:21:21 AM »

https://davesredistricting.org/join/abf6a9ee-0c85-479d-bac7-46cbb3b23e78

My attemp on redistricting in Michigan: 1 majority AA seat, one majority-minority seat (both of them can be majority AA if switch few precincts between them), 2 safe Democratic seats, 2 likely D seats, 3 safe Republicans seats and 6 highly-competetive seats

8-5 Trump in 2016
10-3 Biden in 2020

Definitely competitive! I think you could neaten it up a bit if you put Holland and Grand Haven in district 2 while putting (part of) Eaton in district 4 and then pulling district 4 south out of some of its remote northern arm without affect partisanship in the districts much if at all.
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