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The algorithm uses US Census data, so perhaps using county boundaries would be ideal? I'm not american, but I imagine both census and zipline boundaries as hono
by chippy 11y ago
The algorithm uses US Census data, so perhaps using county boundaries would be ideal? I'm not american, but I imagine both census and zipline boundaries as honouring geographic and community boundaries.
- saalweachter 11y agoCounty boundaries in much of the US are like state boundaries: people drew a bunch of straight lines through a map, with only the slightest regard for natural barriers, to create areas of pleasing size. It is quite common to have large population centers crossing county boundaries, or have natural barriers in the middle of a county with population centers on either side.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> The algorithm uses US Census data, so perhaps using county boundaries would be ideal? Counties are too big to be atomic units in any algorithm that assigns districts that would be meet the requirements for reasonably equal size districts. > I'm not american, but I imagine both census and zipline boundaries as honouring geographic and community boundaries. ZIP codes don't do either particularly well, and census blocks might approximately do one or the other (not always the same for different boundaries) but they can't consistently do both, since the two can conflict.