Just for fun, I thought I would take one of the worst gerrymanders in the country — Pennsylvania — and see what happened if I vertica-mandered it. That is, I would start in the northwest corner of the state, and start drawing the districts southward, then back up northward, etc. I tried to keep counties intact until I got to Eastern PA, when I couldn’t keep counties together and started drawing bacon strips.
Oddly, I think the GOP comes out only a bit worse than under the current gerrymandered map, and if you consider that the GOP has shown an ability to win pretty handily in D+3 or so districts in SEPA, they might even be a touch better off.
This leads me to believe that tweaking this a bit would lead to a better, much better-looking map. IE the gross gerrymander was pretty unnecessary. And honestly, it is unintentional, but a lot of the current Congressmen maintain their present districts. I guess the population bases are what they are. I also kept the two Philly districts roughly the same, since the 2d is VRA protected. But they are kept within the confines of Philly.
1) 79%O 20%M (old 88O, 12M). To keep it within Philly, it gets a bit more of N. Philly. The AA% drops substantially, but under Strickland that’s acceptable.
2) 91O, 9M (old 90O, 10M) Chk . . . Chk . . . Chaka Fattah (okay, you have to be over 30, or I guess a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Fan, to get that one).
3) 50O, 48M (old 49O, 49M)
4) 47O, 52M (old 44O, 55M)
5) 42O, 57M (old 44O, 55M) I think Thompson and Shuster might be in the same district somewhere in here.
6) 54O, 45M (old 58O, 41M)
7) 57O, 42M (old 56O, 43M)
8) 55O, 44M (old 54O, 45M)
9) 42O, 57M (ol d 35O, 63M)
10) This actually puts Marino and Dent together. 56O, 43M (old 54O, 45M)
11) 54O, 44M (old 57O, 42M)
12) The old 19th. 48O, 51M (old 43O, 56M)
13) 57O, 42M (old 59O, 41M)
14) 63O, 36M (old 70O, 29M)
15) New District, 38O, 61M
16) 47O, 52M (old 48O, 51M)
17) 44O, 55M (old 48O, 51M)
18) Critz/Murphy together 47O, 52M (old 18th = 44O, 55M, old 12th = 49O, 49M)
Although probably isn’t good on the communities of interest front.
BTW Glenn Thompson lives in Centre County so he’s in your 9th. Don’t remember where Shuster lives off the top of my head. Also I think Marino lives in Lycoming County so he’s in your 9th or 15th?
Dems could go as high as 13 seats in this map, the GOP as high as 14, but this really looks like it would go 9-9 in a neutral year.