Redrawing the World

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Wednesday June 17, 2015 · 11:32 AM PDT

2015/06/17 · 11:32

About two weeks ago, I came across a post on Reddit (h/t the uploader, frayuk) that redrew the world into 200 countries of equal population-- each having 36 million people, plus or minus a couple million.

I was immediately fascinated by the map, because it accomplishes a couple of things very neatly-- it's a great visualization of population density in the world, and it's a cool impulse to read about different corners of the world and their cultures, as the obvious quest is to make countries that are culturally, politically and geographically as cohesive as the constraints allow-- a task that European imperialist and colonialist map drawers have, of course, failed at historically in the Middle East and in Africa, for the most part. For much of Bantu south-Saharan Africa, which was the area I knew the least about and which seemed the most sensitive to changes in borders, the Guthrie classification of Bantu languages was a great resource aside from reading a lot about the different regions and their people.

Having respectfully disagreed with a couple of frayuk's design decisions, I set out to make my own map, which is featured below the break. It's interesting to see where we ended up differing and where we ended up in the same place-- I did not look at his map throughout the ten days or so it took me to come up with my version.

I also learned a lot about technical aspects of mapping, and a write-up of my process is down below, as well.

twohundertseventy

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Thursday December 06, 2012 · 3:27 PM PST

2012/12/06 · 15:27

--- This is Part 2 of a series of diaries that illustrate how the US could be divided into 100 equally populated states. Part 1, can be found here.---

This part covers much of the South-- Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina.

twohundertseventy

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Thursday November 15, 2012 · 8:57 AM PST

2012/11/15 · 08:57

A lot of the complaints about the electoral college and the Senate can be traced back to the fact that we have states that are wildly different in population. If they weren't, a lot of the structural imbalances wouldn't completely disappear, but be much diminished.

This diary series takes a look at how the United States might look if the States were restructured so that the continental US (including DC, but excluding Hawaii and Alaska) is divided into 100 equally large states. Every state would presumably have 5 Congressional Districts (which increases the house size to 503, assuming that Hawaii stays at 2 and Alaska at 1), but I'm not dealing with that for now.

Why 100 states? Well, mostly because I've looked at a version with 50 in the past (although I don't think that I've diaried it here), but you could also make an argument that large states could be correlated with dysfunctional governments and that smaller states might be functioning better. There's definitely a strong correlation between gubernatorial approval ratings and state size, for that matter.

With a population of about 3 million, states would also be much more cohesive than they are right now-- what does Miami have to do with the Florida panhandle, after all?

This diary will deal with the first 8 states, covering the territory of what currently is Florida and some of Georgia.

I don't really have witty names for the states, but I'd be happy to get some suggestions in the comments.

twohundertseventy

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Tuesday March 06, 2012 · 9:17 AM PST

2012/03/06 · 09:17

Okay, so the Special Master drawing the court plan for New York's Congressional Districts has released his map today. Here are the statistics for the plan, as crunched by me.

Let's lead this off with the DRA file, after that, some geek stats.

The DRA File

Update: I thought I'd throw in CVAP stats for the majority-minority districts in NYC. These might be handy to have.

5th: 59% Black CVAP, 17% White CVAP, 15% Hispanic CVAP, 10% Asian CVAP
6th: 50% White CVAP, 31% Asian CVAP, 15% Hispanic CVAP
7th: 39% Hispanic CVAP, 35% White CVAP, 17% Asian CVAP
8th: 53% Black CVAP, 29% White CVAP, 15% Hispanic CVAP
9th: 52% Black CVAP, 29% White CVAP, 15% Hispanic CVAP
13th: 49% Hispanic CVAP, 32% Black CVAP, 17% White CVAP
14th: 40% Hispanic CVAP, 35% White CVAP, 13% Asian CVAP, 13% Black CVAP
15th: 62% Hispanic CVAP, 32% Black CVAP,
16th: 49% White CVAP, 31% Black CVAP, 16% Hispanic CVAP.

twohundertseventy

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Friday February 10, 2012 · 8:31 AM PST

2012/02/10 · 08:31

Republishing note: As there are a lot more maps here than there were in the first minutes when I posted this diary for the first time, I think that it is worth a re-post.

Recent additions are the Congressional Maps for Arizona, Alabama and Maryland, and something redistricting geeks will love -- an almost complete dataset for the Congressional Maps that were used for the 1988/1990 House elections. I'm saying "almost" because California is mostly missing-- it crashed on me when I was mostly done, and I was so frustrated by that that I didn't continue working on it until now. I included the last save state of my DRA file, which unfortunately is just NorCal.

____
Now that a lot of redistricting maps at all levels-- Congress, State Legislatures, local-- are complete I thought it would be a good idea for the redistricting community here to work on getting the official maps into the tool of our choice-- Dave's Redistricting App.

I started a GDocs folder to collect these maps, but I'll put the links to the maps themselves in this diary as well, and update as more maps come in over the next weeks.

Notes:
The Michigan Congressional map courtesy of RedRacingHorses user Left Coast Libertarian
The Tennessee Congressional Map courtesy of IllinoyedR
The Colorado Congressional Map, Maryland Congressional Map and all North Carolina Congressional Maps courtesy of sawolf
Other maps by me

Errata:
The 20,000 deviation between Virginia's 2nd and 3rd Congressional District's are due to the State of Virginia considering the precinct Zion Grace to have a population of about 20,000 more than DRA does, and the adjacent precinct Taylor Elementary School (both Norfolk) to have 20,000 less.

Oregon's State House districts are nested into the State Senate Map (1&2->1, 3&4->2...), but for some reason I can't get that into DRA's head, it refuses to load the State Senate map for me-- but as you can see, its information is contained in the State House map.

twohundertseventy

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Tuesday January 17, 2012 · 8:41 AM PST

2012/01/17 · 08:41

I thought a break in my regular programming of data collection and analysis would be fun. So I thought that since I just got the 1990 Almanac of American Politics, doing a diary on the Politics and Congressional Map of North Carolina in the 80s would be fun. I also couldn't really decide whether I wanted to write in present or past tense, so I switched around between both. Bad writing, I know, sue me.

Let's start with a short discussion of how North Carolina Politics worked: Then as now, both Republicans and Democrats had a strong presence in the state. Throughout the 80s, Republicans carried the state on a Presidential level, although Jimmy Carter came close in his national landslide loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The Senate delegation was definitely dominated by Senator Jesse Helms, an arch-conservative Republican. He had survived a strong challenge by then-Governor Jim Hunt in 1984 and faced another competitive race against black Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt in 1990 (he won again).

The other seat had been held by Republican John East-- a Helms ally. When East committed suicide in 1986, former Democratic Governor Terry Sanford managed to defeat Jim Broyhill-- a Congressman from Western North Carolina and from the more moderate wing of the Republican Party. Sanford proved to be a rather liberal Democrat in the Senate and lost reelection in 1992 to the Helms-backed Lauch Faircloth.

The incumbent Governor was Republican Jim Martin for the latter part of the decade-- after Jim Hunt ran for Senate, Martin won the 1984 and 1988 Gubernatorial races, and built up a party machine rivaling Helms' "Congressional Club".

twohundertseventy

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Friday January 13, 2012 · 9:16 AM PST

2012/01/13 · 09:16

Republishing note: As there are a lot more maps here than there were in the first minutes when I posted this diary for the first time, I think that it is worth a re-post.

I started a GDocs folder to collect these maps, but I'll put the links to the maps themselves in this diary as well, and update as more maps come in over the next weeks.

Notes:
The Michigan Congressional map courtesy of RedRacingHorses user Left Coast Libertarian
The Tennessee Congressional Map courtesy of IllinoyedR
The Colorado Congressional Map, Maryland Congressional Map and North Carolina Congressional Map courtesy of sawolf
Other maps by me

twohundertseventy

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Friday December 23, 2011 · 11:02 AM PST

2011/12/23 · 11:02

As always, lots of data goodness from me. Last three Presidential Elections, Senate Elections, Governor elections, redistribution statistics and demographics.

But first of all, a shout-out to shamlet from RRH, who sent me the .drf file this is based off.

**cross-posted from RRH**

DRA has a lot of major issues for NJ-- a bunch of Trenton, Elizabeth, Newark and Lakewood is completely off on the election numbers. So in the areas that are affected by this-- the 8th, 10th, 4th and 12th districts my election numbers will be about as problematic as the DRA numbers are.

Luckily, none of the districts involved are even remotely swingy, so it doesn't matter too much.

twohundertseventy

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Thursday December 15, 2011 · 3:15 AM PST

2011/12/15 · 03:15

Just a short service announcement: I'm happy to say that my recreation of the PA Republican Gerrymander in Dave's Redistricting App is now hosted on Dave's website.

You can access it here.

The boundary between Fattah's and Brady's district might have a couple of misplaced precincts, but outside of Philly proper, all districts should exactly math the legal description I used to create this, except for precinct splits.

PA GOP gerrymander data

twohundertseventy

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Wednesday December 14, 2011 · 5:31 PM PST

2011/12/14 · 17:31

I'll update as I get more information, but take this for now. (EDIT: I posted all statewide races 2000-2010. That's enough.) Note: The Brady/Fattah districts may be ever so slightly off because I just went by my eye there, since they don't really matter anyway. All other districts are going directly by the official legal descriptions, except for precinct splits.

I'll update as I have more, but take this for now.

District	Obama	McCain	D	R
1	79.6 %	19.6 %	79.2 %	20.8 %
2	90.6 %	9 %	88.5 %	11.5 %
3	46.3 %	52.3 %	47.1 %	52.9 %
4	45.2 %	53.7 %	41.2 %	58.8 %
5	47.1 %	51.5 %	46.2 %	53.8 %
6	53 %	46 %	48.5 %	51.5 %
7	51.2 %	47.8 %	48.2 %	51.8 %
8	53.2 %	45.7 %	51.1 %	48.9 %
9	41 %	57.8 %	44.4 %	55.6 %
10	42.3 %	56.5 %	39.7 %	60.3 %
11	46.9 %	51.8 %	45.4 %	54.6 %
12	44.7 %	54.1 %	49.1 %	50.9 %
13	64.8 %	34.3 %	64 %	36 %
14	67.2 %	31.8 %	69.7 %	30.3 %
15	52.1 %	46.6 %	49.6 %	50.4 %
16	50.2 %	49 %	44 %	56 %
17	56.9 %	41.9 %	56.6 %	43.4 %
18	43.8 %	55.2 %	48.4 %	51.6 %

District	WhiteVAP	BlackVAP	HispanicVAP	AsianVAP
1	43 %	35 %	14 %	7 %
2	35 %	53 %	6 %	5 %
3	93 %	4 %	1 %	1 %
4	85 %	7 %	5 %	2 %
5	94 %	2 %	2 %	2 %
6	88 %	4 %	4 %	3 %
7	88 %	5 %	2 %	4 %
8	88 %	3 %	4 %	4 %
9	95 %	3 %	1 %	1 %
10	93 %	3 %	3 %	1 %
11	90 %	4 %	3 %	1 %
12	94 %	3 %	1 %	1 %
13	67 %	15 %	8 %	8 %
14	75 %	19 %	2 %	3 %
15	83 %	3 %	10 %	2 %
16	78 %	5 %	13 %	2 %
17	87 %	5 %	5 %	1 %
18	95 %	2 %	1 %	2 %

District
1	Brady 55%	Schwartz 16%	Meehan 15%	Fattah 15%
2	Fattah 64%	Brady 27%	Gerlach 9%
3	Kelly 70%	Altmire 23%	Critz 5%	Thompson 3%
4	Plaats 93%	Holden 7%
5	Thompson 73%	Kelly 21%	Shuster 6%
6	Gerlach 50%	Meehan 19%	Holden 18%	Pitts 6%	Dent 5%
7	Meehan 57%	Gerlach 20%	Schwartz 12%	Pitts 10%	Holden 1%
8	Fitzpatrick 89%	Schwartz 7%	Dent 4%
9	Shuster 70%	Critz 29%	Murphy 1%
10	Marino 66%	Thompson 17%	Barletta 9%	Shuster 7%	Holden 2%
11	Barletta 35%	Marino 24%	Holden 23%	Plaats 10%	Shuster 8%
12	Altmire 64%	Critz 29%	Shuster 4%	Murphy 2%	Doyle 1%
13	Schwartz 60%	Brady 11%	Fattah 11%	Gerlach 8%	Fitzpatrick 6%
14	Doyle 82%	Murphy 10%	Altmire 4%	Critz 3%
15	Dent 72%	Holden 25%	Gerlach 3%
16	Pitts 86%	Gerlach 14%	Holden 1%
17	Barletta 53%	Holden 21%	Dent 20%	Marino 6%
18	Murphy 79%	Critz 20%	Altmire 1%	Doyle 1%

twohundertseventy

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Wednesday November 30, 2011 · 6:16 AM PST

2011/11/30 · 06:16

**crossposted from RRH**

This is how I imagine California should look if it had 24 districts [so that the House overall would be reduced to 200 districts] and were redistricted commission style. All election data two-way. This is my second diary in this series. I'm already done with redistricting all states that don't become at-large states, but not sure in which order I'll write them up. Any preferences? All states are redistricted the way they're stacked up in 2010-- D gerrymanders where D's have free reign, same for R's, and otherwise court/commission style maps. I have a bunch of election data for all of them. NY is already posted here and on RRH.

Northern Cali

Blue: Coast of Norcal, Marin, Vallejo, Fairfield

Election: 71.5% Obama, 66.1% Brown, 65.2% Kerry, 65% Boxer, 61.1% Harris, 68.7% Lockyer (vs. Parish), 60.1% Bowen (vs. McPherson).

Race: 66% White (VAP), 18% Hispanic

Prior Representation: 43% Woolsey, 34% Thompson, 16% Miller.

Rating: Safe D

Green: Northeast Cali

Election: 45.2% Obama, 41.8% Brown, 38.3% Kerry, 36.4% Boxer, 35.4% Harris, 44.6% Lockyer, 34.8% Bowen.

Race: 76% White (VAP), 14% Hispanic

Prior Representation: 48% McClintock, 45% Herger

Rating: Safe R

Purple: Sacramento, Citrus Heights

Election: 60.9% Obama, 60.7% Brown, 51.6% Kerry, 54.9% Boxer, 50.0% Harris, 58.2% Lockyer, 47.3% Bowen.

Race: 53% White, 18% Hispanic, 15% Asian

Prior Representation: 45% Lungren, 43% Matsui, 16% Miller.

Rating: Likely D

Greyish Blue: Modesto, empty counties

Election: 46.6% Obama, 43.4% Brown, 37.7% Kerry, 37.7% Boxer, 36.6% Harris, 46.9% Lockyer, 36.5% Bowen.

Race: 56% White, 33% Hispanic

Prior Representation: 33% Cardoza, 32% Denham

Rating: Safe R

Light Blue: Fresno, Tulare County

Election: 49.3% Obama, 44.7% Brown, 39.9% Kerry, 38.1% Boxer, 37.2% Harris, 48.2% Lockyer, 37.2% Bowen.

Race: 49% Hispanic, 37% White

Prior Representation: 49% Nunes, 33% Costa, 18% Denham

Rating: Safe R

Green: Coastal CA, Salinas, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz Cnty

Election: 63.7% Obama, 57.1% Brown, 57% Kerry, 56.7% Boxer, 51.9% Harris, 59.8% Lockyer, 45% Bowen.

Race: 54% White, 35% Hispanic

Prior Representation: 43% Farr, 20% Capps, 11% McCarthy

Rating: Safe D

Note: Does anyone know why Bowen bombed here so much? It's not an error, I checked-- she won Santa Cruz by just one point, and that's a 79% Obama county.

Pink: Bakersfield, Ventura County

Yeah, I know, not great, but one district always has to suffer in terms of CoI. And it's not terrible-- there's a traffic connection over the I-5, and both places are pretty conservative by Cali standards.

Election: 53.9% Obama, 47.1% Brown, 46% Kerry, 45.3% Boxer, 40.6% Harris, 51.5% Lockyer, 44% Bowen.

Race: 51% White, 38% Hispanic

Prior Representation: 37% Gallegly, 27% McCarthy, 24% Capps, 11% Costa

Rating: Likely R for Gallegly, Lean R for McCarthy

twohundertseventy

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Wednesday November 16, 2011 · 1:41 PM PST

2011/11/16 · 13:41

*crossposted from RRH*

I know when there's talk about a change in the size of the House, it's usually in the direction of expanding it. However, I think from a redistricting perspective it's much more fun to make the House smaller.

Throwing incumbents together is more fun than creating open seats, regions are much more easily kept together in larger seats than smaller ones, and of course, who really wants to draw all states with 29015 seats?

So here's NY in a neat, very clean, not intentionally partisan map that gives it 13 seats-- what the state would get if the House was reduced to 200 seats.

Newer
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Redrawing the World

How could the US look in 100 states? Part 2

How could the US look in 100 states? Part 1

Update: NY Special Master Map statistics

Update on official maps in DRA

North Carolina in the 1980s: A Congressional history lesson

Getting official maps into Dave's Redistricting App

Data on the NJ Congressional Districts

PA GOP gerrymander on Dave's Redistricting App

PA GOP gerrymander data

Cali in 24 districts, with lots of election data

NY in 13 districts