(This is part of an ongoing series. To see the other states, look for the Tag “Districts”)
As many of you know, 2021 is a year where congressional districts are drawn for the States in the USA. This occurs after a Census is done, in order to balance representation and ensure that a fairly even number of people are represented by a Representative in the US House.
Now, there are a lot of issues in general around this topic, not least that several states with only a single representative or some states with a great many can range in terms of how many people are represented. Montana, for example, has a single Representative for 1,084,225 people, whereas Rhode Island’s 2 Representatives cover 548,690 people each. This means that Montana, while having only 13,154 less people, has one less voice in the House. A system where we bring down the average (757,058) by say, capping them at 1 Rep per 100,000 persons, would give it a far more even 10 Reps each.
But that’s a systemic issue that’s a topic for a future OP.
What I’d like to focus on today is how districts get drawn up. While we all know it’s a massively political process, it doesn’t have to be that way unless we let it. I’d like to do a thought experiment where we use a simple set of rules to create districts, ignoring political party, based entirely on Population, Rural / Urban mixing, and geography.
Here are my rules:
- Counties should be used as the “puzzle pieces” to fill in districts. This uses already existing state delineations who already focus their efforts on a segment of the state, meaning that a town won’t have split representation based on whether we’re looking at local, state or national policies. This should reduce conflicts of policy in general and makes drawing maps easier.
- Districts need a population anchor. These anchors should be the most populated counties in the state, so that they represent the most people and also so that we don’t cluster the most heavily or least populated counties into the same districts. There should be a good mix this way, and give more variety of voices to very large population centers, should it cover multiple counties.
- Every district should be made up of a fairly equal number of people, based off of how many Representatives they have. Thus we take the population of a state and divide it by the number of Reps. This is then how many people, approximately, should be in each district.
- Every district should strive to include both rural and urban counties. This forces the Representatives to consider all their constituents’ needs. This also means no one can win a district by focusing only on one or two counties.
- Districts should attempt to consolidate in a region. This prevents weird borders and district “islands.”
- Counties may only be “shared” if there is no other easy way to draw districts without significant population difference. If done, it may only be halved, not cut up further. An anchor may not be shared unless it by itself is too large to be a single district.
- I must make these maps without consulting any political voting trends of counties or direct knowledge of existing districts.
Setup
Today we are covering Arkansas. It has 4 Congressional Seats in the House of Representatives, and thus has 4 districts.
We’ll need a county map with population. I want to use the estimated data for 2019 population rather than the current census, because of the questions surrounding the data in 2020, and because I can then later compare it to the currently existing districts to see how well it matches or not. For that, I’m using this handy site with population figures per county on an interactive map:
https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united-states/quick-facts/arkansas/population#map
Based on this, we can look up the other things we need to know:
- Population: 3,017,804
- Representatives: 4
- Population per Rep: 754,451
- Most populated counties:
- Pulaski: 392,680
- Benton: 272,608
- Washington: 236,961
- Sebastian: 127,753
- Faulkner: 124,806
While we only need four anchors, Benton and Washington are so close to one another that we’re combining them, to give a more spread out total area. Either way, we’re bunched up a bit in the North West, so it’s probably best we start there.
Building Districts (1)
As noted, we’ll start where we’re most boxed in, Washington and Benton counties. Together, they account for 509,569 people, so we should select the surrounding counties and see what’s left. Crawford, Madison and Carroll give 108,110 people. Franklin, Johnson, Newton and Boone give 89,837 more people, bringing our total to 707,516. Pope has a bit too many, but if we drop Franklin (which is close to another anchor) we get a fairly tidy district with 753,706 people, which is 99.90% of the population per representative.
So to recap:
- District 1 includes the North Western corner of the state, and contains 9 whole counties.
- Population is largely urban, with about a third rural.
- Geographically compact.
Let’s see how the next district goes.
Building Districts (2)
Since we’re in the area, let’s go to Sebastian (127,753) next. Immediately we pick up Franklin and surrounding counties Logan and Scott for 49,866 people. Going out another circle we pick up Yell, Montgomery and Polk for 50,508 people. Next circle that doesn’t border another anchor is Sevier, Howard, Pike, Clark, Hot Spring and Garland, for 196,069 people. Avoiding anchors again, we then get Little River, Hempstead, Nevada, Ouachita and Dallas for 73,181 people. And sweeping up the bottom 12 counties we get 210,836 more people. Picking a few border counties (Perry, Conway and yeah, Arkansas (very creative) counties) we get a total of 757,225 people, or 100.37% of the population per rep.
So to recap:
- District 2 most of the West and South counties, 33 in total.
- It’s “L” shaped, done so to avoid other anchors and give a good geographical denseness
- There is a good mix of rural and urban population in this district as well.
Let’s go on to District 3.
Building Districts (3)
Pulaski (392,680) is the center of this district, and picks up all surrounding counties that District 2 avoided. So we add Saline, Grant, Jefferson and Lonoke for an additional 281,380 people. We’ve primarily grabbed urban counties, so we need to mix some rural in and also spread out so as not to interfere with the last anchor, so we pick up Prairie, Monroe and Lee (23,959 people). Adding in Phillip and Woodruff gives us 747,977 people, or 99.14% of the population per rep.
To recap:
- District 3 includes the most populated areas, combined with some of the least populated regions to the East.
- Centrally located, it has a “tail” into the east of the State, forming a line between district 2 and 4.
Let’s go to District 4
Building Districts (4)
The last district is supposed to be the easiest, and I think this time it really will be. We start with Faulkner, and take the entire north east part of the state, culminating in a population of 758,896, or 100.59% of the population per rep.
This means:
- District 4 includes the center and north east of the state, 21 counties in total with Faulkner as its anchor.
- It is varied in urban and rural.
Final Picture
Arkansas was relatively easy to analyze, having a good deal of counties with an ability to mix and match in localized areas. The new map would look like this:
Comparisons
Right now, the districts in Arkansas look like this:
Currently, district 1 and 4 have almost no urban areas, with those being clustered into 2 and 3. I think that’s a poor choice, since it means you don’t get a mix of people in the districts. Conversely, since it’s split 2 and 2, you could say it sets up a dynamic of urban and rural. I’m not sure which is better, but I lean towards a more diverse population per district, as per the rules established up top.
Arkansas does hold well with the idea of districting per county. A smart move, IMO.
The new district map is a bit better geographically clustered, and gives each area significant population centers. Although the maps do not differ much on the West, the East looks very different with one long stretched out district covering the whole area. Again, and this might be author bias, I like mine better 🙂
What do you think? Which map do you think makes more sense? What rules would you implement? What would you value and/or like to see? Let me know in the comments below!