Current Gerrymanderd Connecticut Congressional Map

The Northwestern district is apparently engaged in a death struggle with the central district and districts have random arms

This was created by a "neutral" special master

Map created in districtr.org

Map created in
districtr.org
https://districtr.org/plan/346904

This map has more equal districts which sprawl less and do not cross town borders

It is 13 times better

Effects of the Gauge Percentage

The higher the gauge percentage, the more impact of that factor. In the example, I chose what I believe to be middling percentages of 96 for the inequality factor and 92 for the road distance factor. In the result, the generated map was 13 times better than the actual map.

The amendment specifies that these must be between 88 and 99. Here is how that proportion varies with the gauge percentage:

If inequality and road distance are both 99, the generated map is 83 times better

If inequality and road distance are both 88, the generated map is 10 times better.

If inequality is 99 and road distance 88, the generated map is 15 times better,

If inequality is 88 and road distance is 99, the generated map is 54 times better

Procedures and Caveats

Tried to create proposal in dirstrictr.org, but districtr.org doesn't show actual towns very well. So I had to go back to a list of towns with census results and piece it together. I then went back to districtr.org to show the illustrative map. (There is some tiny difference in census results presumably caused by a transposition in a population number somewhere)
I chose the towns by starting in the SW corner at Greenwich and creating the smallest possible district. I then did the same from the entire easter border with Rhode Island. I then did the same from the NE corner. I then built a district up from Long Island Sound between the eastern and southwestern districts. What was left was a compact district around the state capital of Hartford. I then had to go back and add and subtract towns to minimize inequality.
Found furthest geographic distance in Google Earth TM where there are good town dividers and measuring tools
.Located addresses nearest the corner in Google Earth TM and used Mapquest walking distance to find the road distance. -- Two problems which are trivial here
- The amendment calls for closest spot on a road to a geographic extreme, not closest address. This would have to be correct if the amendment were adopted
- Walking distance in Mapquest excludes limited access highways which are ok but may include park trails which are not ok. I do not believe this had any effect here.
I could find no place with the 2020 census results for the current districts, so I had to use the 2024 estimate. This may have had a small effect on the inequality part of the calculation
The special master has the 2020 numbers for the 2010 districts and various calulations of voting age population and myriad other indices and tables -- but noplace (which I could find) were the essential numbers

Assumed Actions by the Connecticut legislature in operating under the amendment

I assumed that the Connecticut state legislature would choose town as the relevant local jurisdiction. Counties no longer have any function in CT. There are some planning regions which could conceivably be chosen, but I think town would be the choice the legislature would make.
I assumed that the gauge percentages for the inequality and compactness measures would 96 and 92. The amendment requires some number between 88 and 99. I picked these two more or less arbitrarily.

Why Connecticut?

A friend requested it
Even though I have never lived in Connecticut, I have lived in walking distance of the border and I have traveled into it several thousand times.
I thought it would be easy because it is small. Instead it took me two weeks to figure out how to get it done. If I had software designed for this, (or if districtr.org had made it easy to work out town borders), I could have done this in a few hours.
Connecticut has no significant geographic borders within it. The Connecticut River which bisects the stae is amply bridged. from the Massachusetts border to the Long Island Sound. It did have some impact on road distances. I did not feel I needed to consider alternate travel modes like railroad or ferry.
Because there are no towns of more than 150,000 people, the redistricting process is less lumpy.

Links and references

Here is read-only access to the two spreadsheets used in creating this map. Summary of Results and detail by town.
Here is the special master report. Note how he used six or seven different abstruse measurements to address the compactness issue. The weirdness of the map lies buried under a pile of mathematical complexity. It also includes the Connecticut court order making the special master report determinative.