Alright, I haven't ever written a diary before, mainly because I don't fancy myself much of a writer. But, after playing with Dave's Redistricting tool for an hour, I whipped up some hot, fresh, maps for my state: Massachusetts! (Note: the two state wide maps get cut off, which is my fault for not editing them first. Just click on them to see the whole thing.)
So I made two attempts, and to be perfectly honest, my first attempt wasn't all that good. (Though with the current map, shown below, it's hard to make the situation any worse)
Yeah. Well, the gerrymander was born in Massachusetts after all!
So, here's my first attempt.
The population in each district didn't come out as well as I would've liked, the maximum deviation is 7,800 exactly, in district 4 as shown below.
My ideas behind each district were:
Dis. 1: A district for Metro-West, the area roughly in between Boston and Worcester, with Framingham at it's core. In the end however, Metro-West is too small for its own district, which forced me to add cities that don't really have anything to do with it.
Dis. 2: Southern Worcester County, including Worcester itself, along with large expanses of Northwestern Massachusetts, most of which is sparsely populated and rural. I also forgot to add part of Greenfield to it, hence the undistricted area shown.
Dis. 3: Western Massachusetts district, with Springfield at its core. Nothing unusual here.
Dis. 4: The overwhelmingly Irish South Shore and Cape Cod make up this district. However, to balance the population, I also had to include some of Bristol county, however the parts I added are relatively well off.
Dis. 5: What I like to call the Lusophone district. In this district we have Fall River, New Bedford, Brockton and Randolph, all home to large Portuguese speaking populations, with the more established Portuguese population and more recent Cape Verdean and Brazilian populations. My second attempt at this district would come out much better.
Dis. 6: A map of the Boston area is below
In this district, most of Boston, along with most of Quincy and parts of Weymouth, Brookline and Milton. It isn't a minority-majority district (53% of the population is white) but it's quite close, though I wasn't aiming to make a minority-majority district.
Dis. 7: Here we have most of the North Shore and other northern suburbs. This district works decently, even more so considering I made it from the leftovers of the others.
Dis. 8: Think of this as the district of declining industries. Here we have Lawrence, Lowell, Haverhill and Fitchburg (mill towns) along with Gloucester and Newburyport (fishing.)
Dis. 9: This district contains most of the cities immediately north of Boston, it also includes parts of Boston itself (Allston, parts of Brighton, Charlestown and East Boston)
Not bad for a first attempt, I'd say. But here's my second attempt:
You want gerrymandering? I'll give ya gerrymandering! Here's a close up of the Boston district and the population for each district.
Alright, unlike last time, where I was scatterbrained, this time I started in Boston itself.
Dis. 1: All of the City of Boston is included in this district. Along with it are the northern part of Brookline, all of Chelsea and all but one ward of Everett. Everett and Chelsea are both very working class, with Chelsea being majority Hispanic, and Everett having a large Brazilian population. While northern Brookline is quite well off financially, it's also very connected to Boston proper, hence its inclusion. This is a majority-minority district, with 47.6% of the population being white. My goal here was to make all of Boston included in one district and not split among several, in order to give the city a strong voice.
Dis. 2: This district includes most of the cities and towns bordering Boston. My goal for this district was to include all the cities with outlying subway service from the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) in one district, as many of these close-to-Boston suburbs have similar populations and similar issues. Only near the end of the Riverside branch of the Green Line is not included in this district, and it was an area that I felt was better included in District 3.
Dis. 3: This is my 128 belt district. It includes much of Metro-West, as well as cities like Woburn, Burlington and Bedford, all of which see large numbers of reverse commuters to office parks and technology parks out there. It also includes the mostly middle class cities of Waltham and Marlborough, however these cities are also seeing large amounts of growth in the technology sector, hence why I included them.
Dis. 4: Of all the districts, this is the one I like the least. It contains most of Essex County, as well as parts of suburban Middlesex county.
Dis. 5: Meet the extremely gerrymandered District 5! I strung Methuen, Lowell, Lawrence, Fitchburg, Leominister together with Springfield, Chicopee and Holyoke. 1/4 of this district is Hispanic, and 5% Asian, almost all of who live in Lowell. I didn't want Springfield to get absorbed into a largely rural district it has little in common with, along with Fitchburg/Leominister. And I didn't want Lawrence and Methuen to play second fiddle to Lowell. I think the biggest problem with this district would be deciding where the representative came from: Springfield, Lowell, Fitchburg/Leominister or Lawrence/Methuen. However, I think with economic and demographic similarities across these cities, having a representative focused on their issues would be a great benefit, as opposed to packing these cities in other districts where their issues would be ignored.
Dis. 6: This is my Worcester centered district, including most of the Eastern Worcester suburbs, and some further out cities from Worcester, including Walpole and Norwood.
Dis. 7: This district includes almost all of the heavily rural areas of Massachusetts, as well as the college towns of Amherst, South Hadley and Westfield among others.
Dis. 8: Almost exactly the same as District 4 from above.
Dis. 9: My second attempt at the Lusophone district, with somewhat better results.
While my maps are far from perfect, I think they are much better than the current mess we have. I look forward to what anyone thinks of the maps, either people from Massachusetts or elsewhere.