As newly approved redistricted legislative district boundary plans are released our spatial analysis team has been running compactness analysis on each one (see Daniel McGlone’s recent blog on his analysis of the approved PA congressional boundaries – http://www.azavea.com/blogs/atlas/2011/12/pennsylvania-congressional-redistricting-we-have-a-plan/). Our growing collection of official, state-approved legislative district boundaries is not just tickling our intellectual fancy – We are also methodically adding the new boundary files to our Cicero API data collection and making it available through a new call we’ve recently added to the API.
This new call has proven to be a big hit with organizations wanting to preemptively match their constituents to the districts they will belong to when the new district boundaries take effect. This enables organizations to prepare their constituent databases for rapid call-to-action campaigns directed at new legislatures, analyze their constituents by districts for the next election cycle, and more.
To use the GeocodingService or MapGeneration service to access newly drawn districts based on the 2010 census:
Simply append the suffix “_2010″ to the DistrictType parameter in any method (for example, you would use the DistrictType NATIONAL_LOWER_2010 to see the new House districts and STATE_UPPER_2010 to see new State Senate districts).
ALL_2010 will return all the new districts available for any given location.
If new districts are not yet available for a given location, the SOAP response will not return district responses for the location.
We are tracking when each state’s new legislature officially takes office (in the majority of cases, this is when the new boundaries take effect). As each state takes office, we will be moving the 2010 boundaries to the current boundary dataset. In other words, keep using the DistrictType calls the way you are using them now and we will do the updating work for you!
New states will continue to be added as we receive and process the data.
After months of only rumors leaking out of the Pennsylvania Capitol about the redrawing of the state’s congressional districts, a map was finally released yesterday. It was supposed to be released last week. Then it was delayed until Monday. Then Tuesday. Then a PDF came out yesterday and the shapefile, which allows us to do a geographic analysis, early this morning. The Cicero team couldn’t wait to get our hands on it!
At first glance we were taken aback, most notably by District 7, which got more “Wow what is that?” remarks in the office than the earthquake. There is a lot to say about this monstrosity, certain to be a poster child for future gerrymandering studies. We’ve been able to perform some basic GIS analysis on the new districts today and will present some findings below. Next week, we’ll write about some of the methods used to create the numbers we are presenting.
First off, here’s the numbers you have been waiting for: compactness, demographics and voting tendency for the current and proposed congressional districts:
UPDATE 12/19/2011: We have added statistics for the Democratic congressional redistricting proposal:
As you can see, using both the Polsby-Popper and Schwartzberg methods of calculating district compactness (read up about how those are calculated by taking a look at our gerrymandering white paper), the proposed congressional districts are slightly less compact than the districts currently in effect. While that may not seem like a lot, keep in mind that Pennsylvania’s current districts are already some of the least compact in the nation, according to our study. District 7, represented by Patrick Meehan (R), takes the honor of having the eighth least compact congressional district in the nation. Of all the newly drawn congressional districts, it is the fifth least compact in the nation. Have a look for yourself:
DistrictBuilder is open source so you don’t have to pay a license fee. If you have the expertise on hand, you can build your own redistricting application. If not, we have experienced software developers standing by to help you build the perfect application to meet your needs. Furthermore, DistrictBuilder was developed in partnership with redistricting experts at the Public Mapping Project.
Voters should choose their elected officials, not the other way around. In the past, we’ve supported redistricting competitions for city and county councils, state legislatures and congressional districts. Users can submit plans to be scored based on demographics, compactness and voting district splits. Since it’s completely customizable, you can choose what the most important ranking factors should be. DistrictBuilder is the perfect way to engage the public in the process of redistricting.
From the comfort of your own living room, DistrictBuilder lets you draw the lines for redistricting with no GIS software or experience required. After you’ve finished your plan, save and share with others via a direct URL link. Then, submit it to the Leaderboards and compare your plan’s demographic and compactness scores with others.
In DistrictBuilder, you are using the latest official Census data to make accurate, informed decisions about redistricting. Customizable demographic statistics and compactness scores update in real-time as you make edits to your plan. DistrictBuilder’s user-friendly interface lets you know when your districts are too large, too small or the ideal size.
Our DistrictBuilder software makes redrawing the lines for redistricting so easy, you’ll wonder what takes the politicians so long. Select the block or precinct and assign it to the district of your choice. Use templates or customizable reference layers to draw based on communities of interest. It’s so simple that no GIS experience is required.
