A Fair Map for the State House
View Map on Dave's Redistricting (https://davesredistricting.org/join/78da8b11-8d1a-41d1-bc92-27038084f09e)
When designing this map I was attempting to make the state house more reflective of the wishes of the statewide results. So I attempted to make this map as proportional to the composite results as possible. Which was achieved with a score of 93 for proportionality. A key part of this map is that many of the previously packed districts have been unpacked. This was done by tying together the Suburbs with their respective cities. This can be best seen with Reading, Allentown, Bethlehem, and Erie. This has the added benefit of also increasing the influence of minority and urban populations which have been rapidly increasing. For example, in the old map, most of Berks County's Hispanic population was packed into one seat whereas now they makeup 35% of the population in two seats and have a large amount in two more seats. Thus allowing for their voice to be better heard by the legislature. This map also removes some unneeded county splits along the Lehigh-Berks border. This was done by grouping the Upper Macungie, Lower Macungie, and Macungie to form one district instead of being split. This is appropriate as this area is not in the same MSA as Berks county nor is this area a rural area similar to the rest of the previous districts it was a part of. The Berks County portions of these districts were tied to Reading as that is the core of the MSA and the county seat. The northern rural portions of the Lehigh Valley were grouped as these areas are very different economically from the rest of the valley due to their rural character and the lack of development in these areas. This map scores well in all metrics with the only metric not being above 50 being combativeness. But while this is true when testing the various elections that occurred I found that the majority of seats always matches the winner of the statewide race which shows that there are enough contested seats to flip the state to each side. Other important parts of this map are that for the most part the seats are compact and are reasonably shaped unlike in the old map where some districts were oddly shaped to connect municipalities along thin borders. If at least the basics of this map are used in the final map then it is safe to say that the state legislature will become a more dynamic body of the highest quality. This will greatly benefit the civic health and the lives of the people of Pennsylvania.