Nate Silver recently discussed the state of NY's redistricting, especially in light of "Weinergate." He gave the following data:
For my purposes, Silver's West and Central are combined (WCNY) as are his North/Capital and Lower Hudson (ENY). This means that WCNY needs about 6 districts (NY-22 through 27) and ENY needs about 5.5 (NY-16 through 21). NYC needs about 11.5 (NY-5 through 16) and Long Island needs about 4 (NY 1 through 4). The following is my attempt at redistricting NY while remaining VRA-compliant. All districts are within 80 from ideal population, and the Adirondack district is right at ideal.
First, the maps!
The Entire State
WCNY
ENY (without Adirondacks and most-lowest Hudson)
Downstate
NYC
Statistics for my maps above
Overall, these maps are clean. In NYC do ugly districts appear. NY-4 snakes along the south shore of Queens and then picks up Gerritsen so NY-6 can retain a majority of African-Americans. NY-10 drops into Coney Island to do the same. NY-12 mops up a multitude of Hispanics throughout Kings, Queens, and New York Counties. NY-9 can take the coastline to connect its two parts of Kings County into one part.
I suspect the Republicans would quibble with this map and might propose the following variation in WCNY:
I suspect they are willing to cut Buerkle as she is atypical of the NY GOP contingent. Hanna seems more in line with the rest of the contingent. In the map directly above, NY-22 (Buerkle) is 59.4-38.7-1.9 Obama-McCain-Other, while NY-23 (Hanna) is 49.4-48.7-1.8 Obama-McCain-Other.
For what it's worth, at the Buffalo News, some have discussed redistricting. Apparently, my idea for WCNY appears to match another's.