Population Density-based Democracy

One of the concepts I have grown interested in lately is the use of density to draw districts for governing bodies. Rather then draw districts based on historical lines, partisan politics, or ethnicity, why not draw them based on a formula that considers density?

How it would work…

  • Take the entire population of a region, state, or country, and divide it by the number of districts one views as appropiate.
  • Neighborhooring census blocks with the closest average density would be grouped together until they had equal population.

Buildings in South End

Why this is a good idea…

  • Areas with similiar densities have the most similiar needs.
  • Connect farming areas with other farming areas, connect dense urban areas with other dense urban areas, suburbs with suburbs.
  • Representives are non-conflicted by different consituencies, they can be pure in what they advocate for in their elected bodies.
  • Rural, suburban, and urban infrastructure needs are best met when communities are grouped together and non-conflicting in their nature.

Towards Tully

Politicians probably would not like this system as it would make it hard to game the system. There would be far fewer marginal districts, far fewer competitive non-primary races. Yet, fewer consituencies would be underr-epresented due to their minority status in their districts, and there would be more cohesive blocks of land.