District of Columbia Retrocession & Virginia Gerrymandering

 How about a history lesson? 

Up until the 1840s, the District of Columbia was a perfect square. The Washington, D.C. that we know about today lies within the state of Maryland, however, the city/county of Alexandria, Virginia was the other part of the square. In 1846, was the retrocession of the Alexandria area - the Virginia portion of D.C. back to the State of Virginia.

Here's a map I found on Reddit about what D.C. would've looked like if the Retrocession had never happened.

Via Reddit

You may want to know why is this being brought up?

Electoral College if "did not vote" was an option

Brilliant maps said share this map so therefore it's shared. The beige colors represent those states with large numbers of voters who didn't vote. This may have made a different for President-elect Donald Trump and these voters could've elected the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. A huge what if admittedly!

I'm glad this wild election season is over though I recognize that this season had some surprising results.

Ward Room: Illinois's Own Flyover Country

As Edward McClelland notes over at the Ward Room blog Illinois is truly a vast state and it doesn't just contain the City of Chicago and it's suburban areas. How many Chicagoans have at least visited Springfield or the states parks?

I've only passed through Springfield and many other cities on the various interstates, bus, and rail routes going out of state. I've only personally visited DeKalb and my brother graduated from Illinois State University so I had the chance to visit Bloomington-Normal.

In any event, Chicago is a vast city although it can be traversed within a day north, south, west, east, northwest, or southwest. Traversing the whole state well that could be a vacation in an of itself!

Yet, if you're from Chicago it's more likely that you would take the first thing out of this state than to really explore the many parts of this state worth visiting.

To be sure it was fun watching Conan O'Brien visit Springfield last year when he visited Chicago. And of course the Illinois Channel will keep you in tune with what's going on in this state as well as visiting it's many sites.

2012 Iowa Caucus items

Let's start with a map of all the counties of Iowa. This map was provided by radio station WHO - which according to Marathon Pundit this station employed future US President Ronald Reagan - which is based out of Des Moines, IA.

Basically in following the results for the most part I followed the results according to Politico and tweeted them as often as I could. The speeches were interesting, but to be sure it still left a lot to be desired. There was still no clear frontrunner. Let's not forget that the Primary season has just started although the Iowa Caucuses isn't considered a conventional primary.

According to Politico as I type this at 1:51 AM Chicago time Mitt Romney was up by eight votes but has only 25% of the vote along with his closest competitor former US Senator Rick Santorum. Ron Paul was in third place with only 21.5% of the vote.

Also American Rattlesnake - the immigration website - provides their thoughts on the Iowa caucus results.

BTW, why is there a Buddy Roemer in this caucus race. I can understand why Cain is even in the running, but what about Roemer. If he's in the running and he's barely even in this race then why not former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. Surely he could've gotten less than 1% of the vote in Iowa whether or not those two gentlemen were in the race!

Now when is New Hampshire, the next big early primary?

Ward Room: Turning Illinois blue

It seems if you simply wanted to draw a map of Congressional Districts that favors the Democrats it's not that easy. Especially if Republicans are better distributed throughout the state.

The map does raise a valid question, though. As a Blue State, should Illinois have a majority Democratic delegation? That was the rationale that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay used when he convinced the Texas legislature to redraw congressional districts to erase a Democratic majority. And that will certainly be an argument Democrats use when redrawing Illinois’s map. With majorities in the House and Senate, and control of the governorship, Democrats can design a map without Republican input. They’ll undoubtedly make sure the district we lose this year contains a Republican congressman.

The Democrats’ dilemma is that it’s more difficult to draw a Democratic map than a Republican map. That’s because Democrats are packed into urban areas, where they deliver huge majorities for their congressmen. Danny Davis, Bobby Rush and Jesse Jackson Jr. all won with over 80 percent of the vote in 2010. The winningest Republicans – John Shimkus, Aaron Schock and Donald Manzullo – won with 71 percent, 69 percent and 65 percent, respectively.

From a mapmaker’s perspective, those big Democratic majorities are wasted votes that could be used to help Democrats win in swing districts. But it’s impossible to draw those voters into swing districts without producing a gerrymandered map that makes it impossible for anyone to figure out who represents them in Washington. Also, diluting those districts too much would violate the Voting Rights Act, which guarantees minority representation. In short, Republicans are more efficiently distributed. That’s why, even in years when Republicans won the most seats in Congress, Democratic congressional candidates won the most votes nationwide.

I can live without "gerrymandering" personally. Why can't we just draw districts will little consideration for political demographics?

I can understand somewhat creating districts for racial or ethnic minorities to insure that they can elect a representative to a city council, county board, state legislature, or Congress. At the same time I hope this doesn't lead any potential political map maker to be real creative and create illogical districts.

Chicago isn't the only city losing their black population...

What about our nation's capitol Washington, District of Columbia? I've heard about gentrification going on there for years. From Washington Post:

The number of African Americans residing in the District plummeted by more than 11 percent during the past decade, with blacks on the verge of losing their majority status in the city for the first time in half a century.

According to census statistics released Thursday, barely 50 percent of the District’s population was African American in 2010 — a remarkable shift in a place once nicknamed “Chocolate City.”

The black population dropped by more than 39,000 over the decade, down to 301,000 of the city’s 601,700 residents. At the same time, the non-Hispanic white population skyrocketed by more than 50,000 to 209,000 residents, almost a third higher than a decade earlier.

The census statistics showed a steeper change for both blacks and whites than had been estimated. With the city ‘s black population dropping by about 1 percent a year, African Americans might already be below the 50 percent mark in the city.

In a city that prides itself on being a hub of black culture and politics, a majority of residents have been black since whites began moving to the suburbs en masse at the end of World War II. By 1970, seven out of 10 Washingtonians were black.

The loss of blacks comes at a time when the city is experiencing a rebound, reversing a 60-year-long slide in population and adding almost 20,000 new residents between 2000 and 2010.

So, I'm sure this is a recurring theme:

Maurice Jackson, a professor of African American history at Georgetown University, said the black middle class has followed the white middle class before them, heading to the suburbs in search of more affordable housing and good schools.

BTW, former Mayor and Washington, DC city councilman Marion Barry was quoted. Not so sure he can provide an answer to this issue. Although he does talk about something Chicago that was an issue in the recently concluded mayoral campaign. Whether or not city workers MUST live in the city:

Barry, the four-term mayor who emerged from the civil rights movement, also faulted Congress for overturning a residency requirement for local government workers in 1988. That, he said, helped build up what he called “Ward 9,” referring to Prince George’s County.

“We can’t keep people from moving, but if we had a residency requirement, we could keep government workers from moving,” Barry said.

Black leadership in Chicago are grappling with the fact that Blacks are leaving the city. Probably not much different there than here. Surely DC had public housing projects which they recently demolished or turned them into co-ops where tenants must pay rent. If DC is very difficult to survive without a college degree then hey where else can low income people go but out of the inner city.

What I also accept as mention by another former DC Mayor Anthony Williams, that you want new businesses and resident to help generate revenue. Especially if that revenue may help low income people.

I don't know how DC is doing fiscally, but I would support -  paramount to worrying about Blacks leaving a city where for years they have dominated politically and culturally - finding a way to make a particular city viable.

If Chicago had a tsunami...

Via Kelly T:

Here is a diagram to put the Japan Tsunami in perspective. If Chicago had a Tsunami that reached 6mi inland, the red area would be destroyed. The Blue area is the footprint of the Great Chicago Fire.

Well Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel at least could organize an evacuation further inland if there was sufficient warning, yes?

Hat-tip Curbed Chicago!