similiar

Private Forestland Not Farms

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When I was younger I used to think of the Tug Hill Plateau as a vast agricultural region. It really isn’t. There are farms in Black River Valley, but not so much up on the Plateau, especially as you gain elevation.

Major Land Resource Regions

The signs going into Lewis County say “Adirondacks-Black River-Tug Hill”, and except for that relatively narrow band running along the Black River, Lewis County doesn’t have a lot of farming — much likes the rest of Tug Hill Plateau.

Lewis County: Tug Hill. Black River. Adirondacks.

An elevation map of NY shows that most of the Tug Hill Plateau is between 1,000-2,000 feet elevation, but that’s high enough in NY to make agriculture unprofitable in most of state due to short growing season.

Hot evening walking along the Catharine Creek Marsh

The Black River Valley, with it’s fertile soils notched between the Adirondack Foothills and Tug Hill Plateau make Lewis County a major agricultural producer, with 262 dairy farms, including some of the largest in state. The area around Lowville is excellent agriculturally, until you start back up in to the hills on both sides with their short growing seasons. Dairy farming makes up 20% of the land use in Lewis County (per 2010 USDA NASS), but almost all of that occurs in Black River Valley or slightly up the slopes of Tug Hill Plateau.

Farming In Black River Valley: Narrow Band of Farms Between Tug Hill and Adirondack Foothills

In many ways the Tug Hill Plateau is a fascinating region of the state. Unlike the Adirondack Park, only a relatively small portion of it is publically owned. About 2/3rds of it is private timber lands, with rest being public lands. It lacks any major cities or population centers, much of it is roadless, or where roads exist, they primarily service hunting camps or timberlands.

Rainy Afternoon at Lower Tenant Falls

The remoteness of the Tug Hill Plateau remains a real fascination for me.

Maple Ridge Windfarm

Population Density-based Democracy

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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.