I was out walking and all I could think was thinking how nice it would be to just laying back in a hammock and studying the clouds. Still a bit cool out but I still dream of those summer days in the not to distant future.
I don’t really get why people get so partisan and like but my guy is one of the good guys. The truth is people seek public service, not as a service to the public but because they enjoy using power to coercive their political enemies through the power of the law.
Every time I go back to my hometown, Greenville I bemoan the changes over the past twenty years. But how much has it really changed compared to myself? I’ve been working and studying in the city for twenty years now and my connection is most distant to the town I grew up in.
But more than that, I’ve also become more wilder and aware of places far beyond the borders of the town I few up in. Greenville is rural and it’s farm country but at 25 miles from Albany it’s still very exurban. Compared to the deep rural country of Madison County – to say nothing of the Allegheny Wilds of Pennsylvania or the back country of West Virginia.
And thanks to the internet I’ve been exposed to greater and more wild country in places like the Mid-West, and the true West like Idaho. I’ve been able to learn about off-griders and homesteaders who really are living on the frontier. I’ve learned about cattle ranchers and dairyman, goat farmers and trappers. Often residing on far greater acreages than is common in an commuter town on the far outskirts of Albany.
It’s not to say that I didn’t grow up in a town of country boys and gals, that there aren’t still cattle and hills and hollers on the back roads. But I’ve experienced far more wild places even in New York State to say nothing of those other states I’ve visited. There are many other towns that smell like cows, places where they homes are far more spread out, where the mountains are bigger and the people are more wild.
Greenville might be rural and the Catskill Mountains looming large, but it’s no Idaho or even West Virginia. In many ways I’ve outgrown my old town both in my dreams and hopes, and while it has changed so I have during my past twenty years away.
Like most towns in New York State, Bethlehem doesn't have Wards. All elected officials are elected at-large.
But could you draw equal population districts that represent actual communities of interest? Not looking a demographics or political competitiveness, but actual communities of interest based on my knowledge of the town -- like Slingerlands, Delmar, Elsmere, Glenmont or South Bethlehem, and have them come out to be equal population? I tried, and here was the results.
There are different ways to look at this problem. One could use an algorithm to draw districts, although I've yet to find one that does a particularly good job. Turns out it's hard to automate district drawing, as often different demographics live next to one and another, and you get stuck with pockets of similar demographics living on opposite ends of the town. You end up packing and cracking or splitting similar demographics, unintentionally. It always seems like equal population is enemy of building communities of interest.
Drawing districts is a fascinating GIS question. But often the best districts are still drawn by humans, watching the totals add up in redistricting plugin, and then looking at maps of demographics. And that involves a lot of acceptance of the fact that districts you have drawn still have a lot of problems with packing and cracking. I don't like how this ultimately came out, but the equal population constraint really causes a lot of problems. Having more districts, might help solve the problem.
The qgis plugin I used for this was the Statto Software Redistricter, using a PL 94-171 Census Data joined against the block-level files. I didn't load any political or demographic graphics, just raw population along with my knowledge of what the neighborhoods look like from a map and having explored them in person, with a goal of grouping highly dense and very rural neighborhoods separately. A goal that was largely a failure in this effort! But it is a fun thought experiment.
I didn’t start abusing caffeine until this morning. Up early with lots of spinach and onions and a couple of eggs in a frying pan with a side of oatmeal and bananas ground up with some maple syrup.
Taking the earlier bus in this morning , I might walk over to Menands to get my steps in. This bus is always early so I often miss it. Not riding in today because I have a town meeting to go to with Save the Pine Bush .
Was up and reading more of the book about sustainable house building. I think this book is fairer, it’s not caught up in all this wokeness crap that so much of the greenies are into. I don’t fear every chemical and I want things to last but are there better, proven simpler less toxic ways of doing things? Is always the most technology complex ways to do things always best? I have a lot of questions ever since I tabled for Save the Pine Bush a few years ago at the Capital Region Green Fair or whatever that was called.
One good thing about the current president is he has opened a lot of discussion about how we do things, and how much of modern America has become about meaningless actions rather than substantive change. Recycling, electric cars and solar panels sure are trendy but do they change anything or is it just DEI program? Maybe we need more radical changes. And we should be questioning scientists even if their research and analysis is vital for good decision making. What green technologies are right for the modern homestead?
…
, I might walk over to Menands 
to get my steps in. This bus is always early so I often miss it. Not riding in today 
because I have a town meeting to go to with Save the Pine Bush 
.
more of the book about sustainable house 
building. I think this book is fairer, it’s not caught up in all this wokeness crap that so much of the greenies are into. 
I don’t fear every chemical and I want things to last but are there better, proven simpler less toxic ways of doing things? Is always the most technology complex ways to do things always best? I have a lot of questions ever since I tabled for Save the Pine Bush a few years ago at the Capital Region Green Fair or whatever that was called. 
and how much of modern America has become about meaningless actions rather than substantive change. Recycling, electric cars and solar panels sure are trendy but do they change anything or is it just DEI program? Maybe we need more radical changes. And we should be questioning scientists even if their research and analysis is vital for good decision making. What green technologies are right for the modern homestead? 