District 1: (Berkshires and Pioneer Valley)
Berkshire County (all)
Hampden County (all except Brimfield, Holland, Palmer, and Wales)
Hampshire County (all except Plainfield)
District 2: (Route 2 corridor and Greater Worcester)
Franklin County (all)
Hampshire County (Plainfield)
Worcester County (Ashburnham, Athol, Auburn, Barre, Boylston, Brookfield, Clinton, E. Brookfield, Fitchburg, Gardner, Grafton, Hardwick, Holden, Hubbardston, Lancaster, Leicester, Leominster, Lunenburg, Millbury, New Braintree, N. Brookfield, Northborough, Oakham, Paxton, Petersham, Phillipston, Princeton, Royalston, Rutland, Shrewsbury, Southborough, Spencer, Sterling, Templeton, W. Boylston, W. Brookfield, Westborough, Westminster, Winchendon, Worcester)
District 3: (Merrimack Valley)
Essex County (Amesbury, Andover, Boxford, Essex, Georgetown, Groveland, Haverhill, Ipswich, Lawrence, Merrimac, Methuen, Newbury, Newburyport, N. Andover, Rowley, Salisbury, W. Newbury)
Middlesex County (Ashby, Ayer, Billerica, Chelmsford, Dracut, Dunstable, Groton, Littleton, Lowell, N. Reading, Pepperell, Shirley, Tewksbury, Townsend, Tyngsborough, Westford, Wilmington)
Worcester County (Harvard)
District 4: (Route 128, North Shore, Cape Ann)
Essex County (Beverly, Danvers, Gloucester, Hamilton, Lynn, Lynnfield, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Marblehead, Middleton, Nahant, Peabody, Rockport, Salem, Saugus, Swampscott, Topsfield)
Middlesex County (Bedford, Burlington, Carlisle, Concord, Lexington, Lincoln, Reading, Stoneham, Wakefield, Winchester, Woburn)
Suffolk County (Chelsea, Revere, Winthrop)
District 5: (Metro North and West)
Middlesex County (Acton, Arlington, Belmont, Boxborough, Cambridge, Everett, Hudson, Malden, Marlborough, Maynard, Medford, Melrose, Newton, Somerville, Stow, Sudbury, Waltham, Wayland, Weston)
Worcester County (Berlin, Bolton, Southborough)
District 6: (Greater Boston)
Middlesex County (Watertown)
Norfolk County (Brookline, Milton)
Suffolk County (Boston)
District 7: (Route 128 and the Mass Pike)
Hampden County (Brimfield, Holland, Palmer, Wales)
Middlesex County (Ashland, Framingham, Holliston, Hopkinton, Natick, Sherborn)
Norfolk County (Braintree, Canton, Dedham, Dover, Holbrook, Needham, Norwood, Quincy, Randolph, Sharon, Stoughton, Wellesley, Westwood, Weymouth)
Worcester County (Charlton, Douglas, Dudley, Hopedale, Milford, Northbridge, Oxford, Southbridge, Sturbridge, Sutton, Upton, Uxbridge, Warren)
District 8: (Greater Fall River/New Bedford)
Bristol County (all)
Norfolk County (Bellingham, Foxborough, Franklin, Medfield, Medway, Millis, Norfolk, Plainville, Walpole, Wrentham)
Plymouth County (Mattapoisett)
Worcester County (Blackstone, Mendon, Millville)
District 9: (Cape Cod, Islands, South Shore)
Barnstable County (all)
Dukes County (all)
Nantucket County (all)
Norfolk County (Avon, Cohasset)
Plymouth County (all except Mattapoisett)
I feel Cambridge and Somerville have more in common with Brookline and Boston than they do with the MetroWest communities.
…but population wise there’s no way those four communities could be in one district. That district is a bit of an oddball because it was one of the last ones I drew. I was trying to not split even Boston (~609,000) so I started with that, then added Brookline because it’s almost completely surrounded by Boston. Then it was a matter of finding the best combination of towns to get the rest of the way to 722,000 and Milton/Watertown seemed to come closest.
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p>Then I wanted a district of North Shore/Cape Ann (ie the remainder of Essex not already in the previously drawn Merrimack Valley district). Once I got to the western edge of Essex County I had some decisions to make. First, I had to grab the rest of Suffolk County before the district got too big, but the real decision was how to attack Middlesex from that side. My original plan was to bend south toward the innermost northern neighbors of Boston, but the towns were getting too big too quickly and every combination came up significantly under or over 722,000. That’s when I decided to follow 128 until it curved southward. I was able to take in the communities served by Hanscom AFB and Minuteman NHP.
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p>Finally, I stretched a bit west of 128 rather than follow it south toward Newton because what I refer to above as Districts 8 and 9 were also already drawn. I had a partial district consisting of the eastern half of Norfolk County (southern 128) which I need to avoid blocking from extending further west. Of course I had no idea until the end that a district consisting of Quincy and Weymouth would end up stretching along the Pike all the way into Hampden County!
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p>This response probably was longer than you bargained for – sorry:)
glad to see you put some thought in it since that portion seemed like an arbitrary regrouping. I have two criticisms and a question.
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p>First why is it important to keep Boston from being split? I would think that it would help Boston to have more than one representative ensuring it gets its share of the federal dollars. I don’t see how the existing arrangement with Lynch getting the southern part of Boston and Capuano getting the northern half no longer holds even if the 8th would need to be merged with part of the 7th.
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p>Also I would argue that your north shore district covers far too much area and would resemble the classic gerrymandered district a bit too much (that being the district of Eldridge Gerry that looks like a salamander)
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p>Lastly why can’t a district go above 722k. Frankly I would not want one to but I was curious as to how that number came about. Was it a court decision?
I’m sure Boston would love to be split. It’s so big it could be the dominant city in not one, but two districts, as it is now. However, I’m not sure that’s fair to it’s immediate neighbors or the rest of the state as a whole. I realize Brookline Milton and Watertown will be overshadowed this way, but I was going for compactness as well. It would have been great if Boston had enough people to be a district unto itself or if Suffolk County had few enough people to constitute a district. Also given the geography of Brookline I couldn’t imagine it not being with Boston. It’s certainly a debatable proposition, but I just philosophically prefer undivided cities and towns. Keep in mind I had neither maps nor population figures for wards and precincts as I was doing this, so I would not know how to divide communities.
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p>With the North Shore I agree that is a bit long from east to west, but I did need to fit the correct number of people into it. I briefly considered putting all of Essex County in one district for compactness, which would require a handful of additional communities to hit 722K. However, I could not fit all of Greater Lowell into this scheme and I really wanted the entire length of the Merrimack River in a single district. I live in the Merrimack Valley so I’ll cop to being biased in this regard.
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p>The 722,000 figure is simply how the math works. According to Wikipedia the 2008 estimate for MA population was 6,497,967, which divided by 9 equals 721996.33. This of course rounds very closely to 722,000 and districts are required to be of equal size within a given state.
It makes it really hard for the districts to work with their congressional reps. I speak from experience. Here are the regional academic districts. There are some duplicates because some are in configurations other than K-12.
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p>Have fun! lol.
I did not look these up as I was making the map, but as I mentioned above I took them into account when I knew what they were. Being from the Merrimack Valley I of course have a better idea of which communities are linked by school district in that part of the state. It appears from your list above that I managed in several cases to keep school districts together even without knowing what they were.
towns in Massachusetts.
What, you’re not familiar with the thriving metropolis of Heath, population about 800? lol.
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p>It’s useful for people to look at this particular list because, by its nature, the list contains the smallest towns in the state. Helps people realize how parochial and insular they are in their own little corner of the Commonwealth.
I will second the emotion about consideration to regional school districts. The word balance keeps coming to mind. Balance of power, resources, urban/burb/rural, socio-economics, higher education.
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p>I can tell you which factors I consider important to deep-six with re-districting:
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p>1. Protecting Incumbents
2. Protecting Incumbents
3. Protecting Incumbents
It cannot happen, as there is no incumbent living in any of those communities, and they’ll have a tough enough time finding bases for the remaining nine (let alone eight if your plan were adopted!). It makes total sense, but does not serve the incumbent Democrats, soooo…
I am curious, but even so I intentionally made no provision for incumbency or partisanship.
hate the most. Or, which of the two can do help who he/she wants while at the same time screwing who they want.
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p>Remember Billy Bulger screwing Joe Early in 1990?
The Third went from a small circle around Worcester to a snake that went down to Bristol County. Same for Barney Frank’s District that year. Except Newton instead of Worcester.
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p>Anyway Early had some troubles and the re-districting was the final blow.
What if you put Chelsea, Revere, Winthrop into District 6 (which then becomes the same as Suffolk county) and Watertown, Brookline, Milton into District 4? How much difference population-wise would it make?
It was too big.