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New York Redistricting Census Data Now Available

by: Andrew C. White

Thu Mar 24, 2011 at 23:31:26 PM EDT

Detail level census data for New York State is now available at the US Census web site.

They provide a nice map tool that unfortunately is not compatible with DailyKos. Fortunately, they also provide 2 map pictures. This one shows the percentage of change by county:

With deep green being largest gains and deep purple being counties with largest losses.

Andrew C. White :: New York Redistricting Census Data Now Available

This one shows total population by county:

NYPIRG has made an analysis of the data. Their press release summary with link to detailed pdf can be found here.

New York State will lose 2 congressional seats from 29 down to 27 beginning in 2012. Each Congressional District will contain 717,707 people. Following the last census districts consisted of 654,360 people. NYPIRG's pdf has nice chart's listing each Congressional, State Senate, and Assembly District along with the 2000 and 2010 populations and the "shift" or change in population between the two censuses.

The Census Bureau website allows you to view the data in many different breakdowns. I have downloaded a few of them for later analysis but quickly reviewed the census data by county in order to estimate how the new 27 district map might look.

By my estimation there will be:

4 CD's on Long Island with the 4th needing a sliver of Queens to make its population requirement.
11 New York City districts with almost a quarter million left over to merge into a Westchester district
4 Lower Hudson Valley districts
1 Capital Region District
1 North Country District
2 Central New York Districts
4 Western New York Districts

The rules for drawing districts have not been determined yet. No matter what rules are put into place there are many ways to draw districts. Even with a strict, non-partisan, compact and contiguous, process like the one out-lined in Mike Gianaris' old Assembly bill there are still multiple ways to draw lines that meet the criteria legally and legitimately. Once Dave's Redistricting Tool is updated with the new New York numbers I will play with it to see what sort of district lines I think ought to be drawn. For now I simply started with county numbers and worked my way from Suffolk County west, north and west to Niagara.

Current New York Congressional Maps can be found here at govtrack.

A quick look at the make-up of our counties, population and potential congressional map:

CD COUNTY (total county pop.) DISTRICT POPULATION BY COUNTY

1 Suffolk (1,493,350) 717,707

2 Suffolk 717,707

3 Suffolk 57,936

Nassau (1,339,532) 659,771

4 Nassau 679,761

Queens (2,230,722) 37,946

5 Queens 717,707

6 Queens 717,707

7 Queens 717,707

8 Queens 39,655

Kings (2,504,700) 678,052

9 Kings 717,707

10 Kings 717,707

11 Kings 391,234

Richmond (468,730) 326,473

12 Richmond 142,257

New York (1,585,873) 575,450

13 New York 717,707

14 New York 292,716

Bronx (1,385,108) 424,991

15 Bronx 717,707

16 Bronx 242,410

Westchester (949,113) 475,297

17 Westchester 473,816

Rockland (311,687) 243,891

18 Rockland 67,796

Putnam (99,710) 99,710

Orange (372,813) 372,813

Dutchess (297,488) 177,388

19 Dutchess 120,100

Ulster (182,493) 182,493

Sullivan (77,547) 77,547

Columbia (63,096) 63,096

Greene (49,221) 49,221

Delaware (47,980) 47,980

Rensselaer (159,429) 159,429

Albany (304,204) 17,841

20 Albany 286,363

Schoharie (32,749) 32,749

Schenectady (154,727) 154,727

Otsego (62,259) 62,259

Saratoga (219,607) 181,609

21 Saratoga 37,998

Montgomery (50,219) 50,219

Fulton (55,531) 55,531

Washington (63,216) 63,216

Warren (65,707) 65,707

Hamilton (4,836) 4,836

Essex (39,370) 39,370

Clinton (82,128) 82,128

Franklin (51,599) 51,599

St. Lawrence (111,944) 111,944

Herkimer (64,519) 64,519

Jefferson (116,229) 90,640

22 Jefferson 25,589

Lewis (27,087) 27,087

Oswego (122,109) 122,109

Oneida (234,878) 234,878

Madison (73,442) 73,442

Chenango (50,477) 50,477

Broome (200,600) 184,125

23 Broome 16,475

Cortland (49,336) 49,336

Onondaga (467,026) 467,026

Tioga (51,125) 51,125

Cayuga (80,026) 80,026

Tompkins (101,564) 53,719

24 Tompkins 47,845

Chemung (88,830) 88,830

Schuyler (18,343) 18,343

Seneca (35,251) 35,251

Wayne (93,772) 93,772

Ontario (107,931) 107,931

Yates (25,348) 25,348

Steuben (98,990) 98,990

Monroe (744,344) 201,397

25 Monroe 542,947

Livingston (65,393) 65,393

Genesee (60,079) 60,079

Orleans (42,883) 42,883

Wyoming (42,155) 6,405

26 Wyoming 35,750

Allegany (48,946) 48,946

Cattaraugus (80,317) 80,317

Chautauqua (134,905) 134,905

Erie (919,040) 417,789

27 Erie 501,251

Niagara (216,469) 216,456

Sharp eyes will note the missing 13 people in Niagara County at the end of the table. New York's total population divided by 27 actually equals 717,707.48 people per district. Rather than deal with the half person per district I rounded thereby leaving 13 lost souls to head over the falls in a barrel.

I am not suggesting these are the districts we will end up with. I am not even proposing they are good ones or the right ones. It's just a quick pass at laying out the data and seeing what it shows us.

Later on, after a more thorough review of the data I'll take a crack at our State Senate Districts as well.

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New York Redistricting Census Data Now Available | 13 comments

Hudson Valley (4.00 / 1)

If I had my druthers, I think the river makes a natural boundary, at least south of Albany. I would rather see districts not cross the river. I am not sure what the full impact would be. Just sayin

by: jmcbride @ Fri Mar 25, 2011 at 20:02:39 PM UTC

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I concur about the Hudson. (0.00 / 0)

One east bank district, one west bank district. When we get to Rockland and Westchester, then they can go together.

Given that this was not put together to prevent representatives from going head-to-head, but just a quick plan, I am surprised that it seems to have two showdowns. In upstate, it seems to be Gibson vs. Hinchey. In downstate, I suspect the duel is McCarthy vs. King or Ackerman.

by: akosmowski @ Fri Mar 25, 2011 at 22:04:23 PM UTC

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A quick mock-up for visualization only (4.00 / 1)

Caveat: As populations of towns, etc., are not up on Dave's app, this is a quick mock-up, so divisions are arbitrary. I do not expect NYC to be divided in this manner.

by: akosmowski @ Fri Mar 25, 2011 at 21:58:12 PM UTC

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Not the rest of the state, either. (0.00 / 0)

If I'm guessing right, it will be gerrymandered again, not as badly as in 2K, but bad enough. Nice try, though. I like that Utica gets to still have its own congressman, even if we have to share with Binghampton, and Syracuse will have to share with Elmira, but Watertown doesn't have to share with anybody its own size, unless you count Fort Drum as a city.

by: Steaming Pile @ Sat Mar 26, 2011 at 01:11:42 AM UTC

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Utica does share with Binghamton (0.00 / 0)

But Syracuse does not share with Elmira.

by: akosmowski @ Sat Mar 26, 2011 at 02:21:39 AM UTC

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There are of course any numer of ways (0.00 / 0)

to cut up the state. NY-22 could move into Onondaga and Syracuse instead of south in to Chenango and Broome which would then be part of NY-23 and so forth.

Or as suggested above the Hudson could be used as a natural dividing line. Westchester, Putnam and the southern part of Dutchess would make a district. Rockland, Orange and half of Sullivan another. The rest of Dutchess, Columbia, Rensselaer, Washington, Saratoga and most of Warren another and so forth.

by: Andrew C. White @ Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 02:22:58 AM UTC

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Thanks for the map (0.00 / 0)

excellent work. Dave's has the new census data in place now but lost the election data in the process. I've just finished putting some maps together. I'll probably put up another post tomorrow.

Thanks for your help!

by: Andrew C. White @ Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 01:43:38 AM UTC

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This post needed one (4.00 / 1)

Even if downstate is so wrong.

by: akosmowski @ Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 02:59:46 AM UTC

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Break Up CD-13 (0.00 / 0)

Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn are part of CD-13. Here's hoping that SI is divided in half. After all, it's the smallest borough (only about 473,000 residents) and the only borough which is not divided in one way or another. Additionally, I can't see getting rid of McCarthy or any of the other long standing members of Congress but Grimm was just elected in November.

by: ROSALIE907 @ Sat Mar 26, 2011 at 08:00:57 AM UTC

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Staten Island Cannot be Divided (0.00 / 0)

as the Verrazano Bridge is the only way off the island, so the district must be contiguous an include all of the island and parts of Brooklyn.

Senate Republicans would love to shave off the northern part of the island in drawing congressional districts as it is has a lot of black and Hispanic voters.

They were successful in creating the new 23rd SD (Diane Savino), which has northern SI and parts of Brooklyn. The 23rd SD was 46% white when it was drawn in 2002 using 2000's data.

http://www.latfor.state.ny.us/...

The rest of SI was used to make the late John Marchi's district more Republican.

http://www.latfor.state.ny.us/...

Prior to the 2002 redistricting and creation of the additional SD in Brooklyn, the 22nd SD (Gentile/Golden) had the Eastern part of SI dividing the minority population in half.

http://www.latfor.state.ny.us/...

by: GOP_RIP @ Sun Mar 27, 2011 at 02:02:55 AM UTC

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The concept that LI with its growth far outpacing Upstate loses a district (0.00 / 0)

seems more like a upstate daydream than reality. NYC, with its fast growth loses a district as well and upstate with all the losses in population remains at 12 seats??? Also, please use some sense of LI knowledge, especially in Suffolk when drawing a seat. Suffolk is all about East End/West End, not north and south. The Five east end towns, Brookhaven and Smithtown would be one district in your scenario and Huntington, Babylon and Islip would be the second. Nassau is more about North Shore South Shore and Long Beach with most of Hempstead Town being one seat and North Hempstead, Glen Cove and Oyster Bay Towns with some northern parts of Hempstead being the second, That would set up the King McCarthy race with Bishop, Israel and Ackerman in the remainder. I think the map will end up being 16.5 seats in NYC/LI and 10.5 seats Westchester north and west.

by: politics64 @ Sun Mar 27, 2011 at 14:58:35 PM UTC

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LI doesn't really lose a seat. NYC does (0.00 / 0)

The 5th is mostly a Queens district with only a little of Nassau.

The numbers are what they are. They are not being manipulated here. There are only 15 seats from the tip of Long Island to the Westchester/Bronx border with just shy of a 1/3 of an additional district left over to mix in with Westchester County.

After analyzing this some and trying to figure out why NYC/LI which gained population loses a seat and western NY which lost population doesn't lose a seat I figured out the answer.

In reality the population gains and loses are negligible. Over all New York gained population but not much. Western NY lost population but only 6% relative to a CD. Other parts of the state gained/lost slightly.

However, relative to the growth in the rest of the country NY lagged behind. Plus we fell just below the cut-off for only losing one seat and lost two instead.

The result of this relative difference is not only that we lost 2 seats but that each CD must now contain 63,000+ additional people. And that is the real kicker.

While this is as true of western upstate NY and eastern upstate NY as it is for NYC the impact downstate is double what it is upstate because there are twice as many seats downstate.

In other words, for the LI/NYC area to retain 15 seats, which it will, it needs to add an additional 1 million people to those 15 seats. This accounts for roughly 1 and 1/2 CD's taken away at the new 717,707 population requirement (the old requirement was 654,360).

So it is not the population gains/loses that do it and in a weird function of the math it is the more populous area that takes the biggest hit.

Hence the city loses a district.

If you count the current upstate districts as starting with the 17th which starts in the city and snakes through Westchester into Rockland then upstate has 13 seats.

With the new district sizes it will be the 16th that starts in the city and moves into Westchester and beyond. This results in 12 seats. So upstate loses a seat also. 12 x the additional 63k works out to just over the 717,707 size of the new districts. The western NY districts will move east into central NY and the central and eastern upstate districts will move south into the mid and lower Hudson regions and somewhere along the way a district will disappear.

Peace,

Andrew

by: Andrew C. White @ Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 02:16:34 AM UTC

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I just drew the line (4.00 / 1)

I figure that Downstate would not work out in any sense, so why not make Suffolk not work out too.

Dave's app has new numbers for NY, so I'm cranking a map out too. I need to tweak NYC. Suffolk is divided by a north-south line, not a west-east line, in my map.

by: akosmowski @ Mon Mar 28, 2011 at 02:48:47 AM UTC

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New York Redistricting Census Data Now Available | 13 comments

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