Revisions to Proposed State House Districts
View Map on Dave's Redistricting (https://davesredistricting.org/join/8f9a0b20-1b90-4d99-a10d-721ab4ad8285)
Whilst over all the proposed state house districts are great improvements over the current districts, some primarily in the western part of the commonwealth leave much to be desired. Too many have disjointed and disparate communities bizarrely stuck together in the same district. From north to south I would to point out the most needed revisions. I'll start with District 6, home to where I went to college. It should not at all be lumped in parts of Erie county and should encompass only western Crawford County including Saegertown and Cambridge Springs. This of course means the neighboring districts need to shift as well and as such, District 4 should change to encompass the areas of Erie County outside of Districts 1, 2, & 3 except for Corry and the surrounding municipalities. Those communities instead would be in District 65 with Warren County, Forest County, and northeast Crawford County. Corry itself acts very much as a gateway into Warren County and I have always passed through it on my way to the town of Warren itself. The rest of Crawford County, the southeast portion, should be with Titusville and Venango County in District 64. These shifts in the northwest corner of the commonwealth better reflect the communities of interest and make more compact districts. Next I would like to focus on Butler County, starting with District 12. Cranberry, Zelienople, Evans City, and Mars are the perfect pair for each other and belong together in the same district. This leaves District 8 to encompass the more northern and rural parts of the county while District 11 should contain the city of Butler and the more southern parts of the county. Now I would like to focus on my home county of Washington starting with the district that contains my home of North Strabane Township. District 46 should not go past McDonald as that is already seen as a distant enough part of the county from the central part of the county. Next, District 48 should contain all of the municipalities that border the city of Washington, in this case that would add all of Canton township to it. That leaves district 15 to encompass the western and some of the southern parts of the county, which are more similar that might be apparent at first. Lastly, I would like to talk about Fayette County, which I visit frequently to see my Aunt and Uncle. The county should definitively be split along the east and west, not the north and south. The Mon Valley is a long withstanding community in all of the counties the river touches and should be respected here as well. Please consider these changes and the rest in my map so as to create districts that make the most sense to the communities that are supposed to find representation from them and do so in as compact a way as possible.