District Boundaries Research Articles

MAGA Trumps the Incumbency Advantage in a Dueling Incumbent Primary

Redistricting is the causal agent responsible for two incumbents facing off in U.S. House elections and hence, despite the rarity of these matchups, they occur periodically due to district boundary changes. In this article, we examine who wins a recent and highly competitive incumbent duel: the 2024 GOP primary in Alabama’s congressional district (CD) 1. Our assessment of this race marks the first academic study to marshal large-N survey data for the purpose of gauging voter preferences in a dueling incumbent primary. This approach gives us a clearer understanding of what accounts for the outcome of a highly contentious and extremely close election. Our findings suggest the incumbency advantage was overridden by voter alignment with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, which produced a narrow victory for the more MAGA/Trump-positioned candidate in this race.

School desegregation by redrawing district boundaries.

Schools in the United States remain heavily segregated by race and income. Previous work demonstrates districts can promote group diversity within their schools with policies like redrawing attendance zones. Yet, the promise of such policies in many areas is limited by the fact that most school segregation occurs between school districts, and not between schools in the same district. I adapt Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms from legislative redistricting to redraw school district boundaries that decrease segregation while maintaining desirable criteria like distance to school and using only existing school facilities. Focusing on New Jersey, where the segregation of Black and Hispanic students from White and Asian students is among the worst in the country, I demonstrate that redrawing school districts could reduce more than 40% of existing segregation in the median New Jersey county, compared to less than 5% for redrawing attendance zones alone. Finally, I show how my proposed methodology can be applied to as few as two districts to reduce segregation in proposed consolidations, when small districts are merged into a larger district.

Downscaling urban resilience assessment: A spatiotemporal analysis of urban blocks using the fuzzy Delphi method and K-means clustering

The spatiotemporal assessment of urban resilience is crucial for planning and policy-making toward addressing climate change and other societal challenges. However, our comprehension of urban resilience at smaller scales is limited. This study not only advances urban resilience research by developing an efficient measurement approach but also contributes to practice by evaluating resilience at the city block level, thereby informing targeted interventions. Our study aimed to downscale the unit of analysis for urban resilience assessment by focusing on the social, economic, housing and infrastructural, and environmental dimensions of blocks in the southern districts of Tehran between 2006 and 2016. The Fuzzy Delphi Method was utilized to determine the indicators for urban resilience assessment. The Analytic Hierarchy Process technique was employed to weigh these indicators. Subsequently, the PROMETHEE technique was applied to evaluate the resilience of urban blocks. Finally, the K-Means algorithm was utilized to cluster the urban blocks. The results indicate that from 2006 to 2016, the southern districts of Tehran saw a marked reduction in overall resilience. This decline affected 48 % of the urban blocks, encompassing 60 % of the area and 62 % of the population. The results of applying the K-means algorithm for urban block clustering did not align with the boundaries of the southern districts of Tehran. This finding highlights that assessing resilience on smaller scales could lead to more accurate conclusions.

Evaluation of the Contribution of Cemeteries to Urban Ecosystem Services: A Case Study of Edirne

Although green spaces in cities play a critical role in providing ecosystem services, cemeteries are often consideredan overlooked part of urban green spaces. However, in recent years, these areas have come to the forefront due totheir potential to provide a range of important ecosystem services such as conservation of biological diversity,habitat provision, air quality regulation, carbon storage, and water management. This study aims to concretelydetermine the contribution of four cemeteries -Acıçeşme, Buçuktepe, Bademlik and Karaağaç- located within thecentral district boundaries of Edirne, to urban ecosystem services. Using the i-Tree Canopy model, the land coverdistribution, air pollution impacts, and carbon sequestration/storage amounts of these cemeteries were analysed.The results indicate that Buçuktepe cemetery provides the highest ecosystem services due to its large area and densetree canopy. It is estimated that the 64.2% tree canopy cover in Buçuktepe Cemetery removes 365.44 kg of gasesand particulate matter from the air annually, sequesters 16.02 tonnes of carbon and stores 402.21 tonnes of carbon.These results show that cemeteries make a significant contribution to regulating ecosystem services in urban areas.The study highlights the potential for transforming cemeteries into multifunctional landscapes that contribute tourban ecosystem services.

CLIMATIC RISKS AND FOREST ECOSYSTEMS: THE INTERACTION BETWEEN DEFORESTATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the interaction between deforestation and climate change, with particular emphasis on the impact of military actions on the reduction of forest ecosystems. The research utilized general scientific methods (data analysis and synthesis), retrospective and comparative analysis, analytical-synthetic methods (study of scientific and statistical data, archival materials, etc.), and remote sensing techniques. The aim of the study was to identify the main causes of the reduction in forested areas in Ukraine and their role in the context of global climate change, as well as their significance for the socio-economic development of the country during wartime and the post-war period. The role of forest ecosystems as a source of a wide range of ecosystem services and as a significant component of the socio-economic status of the Ukrainian Polissya region is analyzed. Special attention is given to the interaction between the reduction of forest-covered areas and the intensification of climate change. The main factors contributing to the reduction of Ukraine’s forest ecosystems are presented, with a particular focus on forest fires, including those caused by military actions. It was established that from April 2023 to April 2024, the highest number of forest fires occurred in the eastern and southern parts of the country, where active military actions are ongoing. An automated methodology for decoding satellite images to detect areas of Scots pine dieback due to infestation by the pine shoot beetle was developed, resulting in a map of the study area showing the boundaries of forestry districts, the grid of forest compartments, the contours of damaged forest areas, and new dieback hotspots. The study demonstrates that forest ecosystems are essential for mitigating climate change and ensuring sustainable regional development. This is particularly true for the Ukrainian Polissya region, especially Zhytomyr Oblast, which has the highest forest cover in the country but also leads in the loss of forest-covered areas.

Automation of determining the boundaries of river basins of small rivers: the case of Khangalassky district of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia)

Currently, the absence of a GIS system linked to river basins in Russia may complicate the work of important operational environmental and hydrometeorological surveillance services. It is important to note that simplifying and accelerating the allocation of river basins through open source software can significantly optimize the work of researchers, especially in conditions where it is important to respond promptly to floods and floods in a short time. The purpose of this work is to automate the allocation of river catchment areas, which can help in the study of vast territories of the Far East, as well as contribute to the creation of effective forecasting and monitoring systems. The study presents an automated approach to the identification of watersheds based on the use of geospatial data and information processing algorithms. The presented method demonstrates the effective allocation of watershed boundaries, which makes it possible to simplify the research process and increase the accuracy of the data obtained. The study was conducted within the boundaries of Khangalassky district of the SR(Ya). The data obtained using digital terrain models were corrected, and then used for rapid allocation of watersheds by means of an algorithm developed by the authors. The algorithm is a module for QGIS, which uses the QGIS and GDAL tools in turn, which significantly speeds up the process of creating materials for further research. The results of the study emphasize the accessibility of obtaining information about the geosystems of river basins as integral systems and put forward the prospect of improving GIS processes related to water resources for more effective monitoring of ecosystems and decision-making in the field of environmental protection.

GEOTOURIST OBJECTS AND ROUTESOF THE SIAN LOWLAND

The geomorphological, geological, and archaeological objects of the Sian Lowlandhave been studied, and their significance as potentially popular geotourist attractions has been substantiated. The Sian Lowlandis located in the northwestern part of the Ukrainian Carpathian Foreland and is a constituent geomorphological element of the Sian-Dniester interfluve. The lowland’s relief is smooth, characterized by the alternation of ridge-like elevations of the Vyshnia‒Vizhomlia, Vizhomlia‒Shklo, Shklo‒Zavadivkainterstreams and shallow trough-shaped river valleys with gently inclined non-terraced slopes and often waterlogged bottoms. The topography of the Vyshniaand Shklo valleys is varied with dunes concentrated in two strips – one stretches along the right side of the Vyshnia river valley through the villages of Malniv, Martyny, Sokolia, ArlamivskaVolia, Khorosnytsia and Zarichchia, and the other one is developed in the Shklo river valley between Krakivets and Yavoriv. The northeastern part of the Sian Lowland has undergone a significant anthropogenic transformation – the Shklo River channel has been regulated, and a complex of anthropogenic landforms and deposits has been formed within the boundaries of the Yavoriv mining district: karst processes and phenomena have been activated. Less large-scale anthropogenic changes have occurred in the lowland’s southern part, which is proposed to be covered by a geotourist route that will run through Rodatychi ‒ SudovaVyshnia ‒ Zarichchia‒Khorosnytsia ‒ ArlamivskaVolia ‒ Sulkivshchyna. The main geotourist attractions here are the following geological, geomorphological and archaeological objects: the preserved valley of glacial meltwater runoff between Rodatychi and SudovaVyshnaya, which is now drained by the Rakivriver, as well as the dunes spread in the valley and the archeological monument KniazhyiMist; eolian, fluvial landforms and deposits, outcrops of fluvioglacial accumulations and archaeological sites developed in the vicinity of the villages of Zarichchiaand Pisky:a complex of eolian and fluvial landforms and deposits, as well as archaeological sites, developed nearKhorosnytsia village; eolian landforms and deposits, an archaeological site near the village of ArlamivskaVolia; glacial accumulations, which were discovered in a quarry located east of the village of Sulkivshchyna (north of Mostyska). These settlements are connected to each other and to Lviv by the M-11 highway (Lviv‒Mostyska‒Shehyni) and/or the Lviv‒Shehynirailway line, which provides convenient access to the proposed geotourist attractions. The developed geotourist route also makes it possible to unite the so far separate Carpathian, Carpathian Foreland and Roztoczegeotourist routes into a single network. Key words: geotourist attractions; Sian Lowland; eolian deposits; dune; terrace; fluvial landform; archaeological site.

Pembangunan Fasilitas Peningkatan Sumber Daya Manusia di Kelurahan Makbon

Makbon sub district is a sub district located in Makbon District, Sorong District, Southwest Papua Province. The Topographical conditions of the villages in Makbon District are mostly located in coastal areas with a total of 15 villages/sub districts. Public facilities are facilities provided for the public interest in the sense of facilities that are used for the benefit of all society in carrying out and making it easier for society to carry out their daily activities. Increasing development in villages is really needed by the community, especially to stimulate economic activities. One of the contributions of the Saint Paul Sorong Polytechnic in Papua, especially in Sorong, is providing community service. There are several things that the lecturer team can do to help the community, namely making sub district boundary moments, making street signs and making street lights for the community service in Makbon to develop facilities and human resources (HR) for the quality of life of the people in Makbon district, Sorong regency, Southwest Papua Province.

Are Firms Gerrymandered?

We provide the first evidence that firms, not just voters, are gerrymandered. We compare allocations of firms in enacted redistricting plans to counterfactual distributions constructed using simulation methods. We find that firms are over-allocated to districts held by the mapmakers’ party when partisans control the redistricting process; maps drawn by courts and independent commissions allocate firms more proportionately. Our results hold when we account for the gerrymandering of seats: fixing the number of seats the mapmakers’ party wins, they obtain more firms than expected in their districts. Our research reveals that partisan mapmakers target more than just voters, shedding new light on the link between corporate and political power in the United States and opening new pathways for studying how mapmakers actually draw district boundaries.

Pembangunan Fasilitas Peningkatan Sumber Daya Manusia di Kelurahan Makbon

Makbon sub district is a sub district located in Makbon District, Sorong District, Southwest Papua Province. The Topographical conditions of the villages in Makbon District are mostly located in coastal areas with a total of 15 villages/sub districts. Public facilities are facilities provided for the public interest in the sense of facilities that are used for the benefit of all society in carrying out and making it easier for society to carry out their daily activities. Increasing development in villages is really needed by the community, especially to stimulate economic activities. One of the contributions of the Saint Paul Sorong Polytechnic in Papua, especially in Sorong, is providing community service. There are several things that the lecturer team can do to help the community, namely making sub district boundary moments, making street signs and making street lights for the community service in Makbon to develop facilities and human resources (HR) for the quality of life of the people in Makbon district, Sorong regency, Southwest Papua Province.

Bound by Borders: Voter Mobilization Through Social Networks

Abstract A vast and growing quantitative literature considers how social networks shape political mobilization but the degree to which turnout decisions are strategic remains ambiguous. Unlike previous studies, we establish personal links between voters and candidates and exploit discontinuous incentives to mobilize across district boundaries to estimate causal effects. Considering three types of networks – families, co-workers, and immigrant communities – we show that a group member's candidacy acts as a mobilizational impulse propagating through the group's network. In family networks, some of this impulse is non-strategic, surviving past district boundaries. However, the bulk of family mobilization is bound by the candidate's district boundary, as is the entirety of the mobilizational effects in the other networks.

Spatial Autocorrelation and Political Redistricting: A Task for the Uniform Distribution

An important quantitative geography application area derives from the periodically repeating apportionment process of redrawing legislative district boundaries to guarantee equal voter representation through identical or equivalent population counts, a situation confronting the U.S. Supreme Court with gerrymandering rulings on a decennial basis. This remains a small geographic sample size domain, with states having between one and fifty-two (i.e., California) congressional precincts in 2023. Texas constitutes an informative case study because its sample size of thirty-eight exceeds the frequently touted minimum of thirty, and its 2020 increase was two seats, more than any other state, some of which experienced decreases. Hence, although all fifty states also have undergone internal population redistribution, the Texas redrawn boundaries offer the greatest opportunity for dramatic borderline changes. This article appraises outcomes of this Texas gain within its legal constraints as they pertain to a novel uniform distribution explicitly embracing spatial autocorrelation, a fundamental georeferenced data property. Its name is sui-uniform to differentiate it from the prevalent auto- model convention; this article furnishes its first empirical application. After accounting for spatial autocorrelation, the inferential conclusion for Texas is as preferred: Superpopulation geotagged voting-age populations conform to a uniform distribution, whereas racial and ethnic subpopulations do not.

디지털 게리맨더링의 편향성 유도가 기본권에 미치는 영향과 입법적 대응방안 연구

Digital gerrymandering refers to the phenomenon of using information technology to artificially manipulate electoral district boundaries to favor a particular party or group. It involves the use of data analysis and information technology to redraw electoral boundaries in a way that results in advantageous outcomes for specific parties or groups. Through digital gerrymandering, it's possible to artificially design the distribution of voters to benefit certain parties or candidates. As a result, this undermines the fairness of elections and induces bias, allowing the votes of certain groups to have disproportionately greater influence compared to others. This process poses several critical threats to the principles and fundamental rights of democracy. First, it violates the principle that every voter's vote should be treated equally. Digital gerrymandering can artificially adjust the value of votes in certain areas, diminishing the influence of some voters while overestimating that of others. Second, it leads to the distortion of political representation. When electoral district boundaries are manipulated, the outcome can differ from the actual will of the voters, resulting in a political representation system that fails to accurately reflect the opinions of some voters. Third, it infringes upon freedom of expression and political diversity. Voters' rights to freely express their political preferences and choose from a variety of political options can be restricted. This study aims to analyze the impact of digital gerrymandering on fundamental rights, especially the right to vote and freedom of expression, and to propose legislative measures to counteract it. It examines how digital technologies can distort the electoral process and specifically how they can infringe upon voters' rights to freely express their will and vote. Additionally, the study explores necessary legislative responses to address these issues, aiming to protect the core values of democracy and ensure the fairness of elections. To achieve this, the study seeks to clarify the concept of digital gerrymandering, illustrate how it can infringe upon fundamental rights through specific examples, and identify concrete legislative measures to ensure transparency and fairness.

Case Study of Emerging Groundwater Management Issues at the Forefront of Large-scale Production from a Confined Aquifer: The Vista Ridge Project

Continued population growth, increased demands for water and declining water availability are statewide water concerns in Texas. The development and movement of water from where it is to where it is needed brings with it benefits to the receiving area and concerns for the area of origin. The Vista Ridge project serves as an on-point example and case study of such concerns and processes that can mitigate, in part, negative impacts that are informative to other Texans who will soon be facing similar pressures.. Impacts on the water levels in existing wells made the Vista Ridge Project a focus of significant public discussion in 2022, including Texas House and Senate interim session hearings. This paper spotlights groundwater management issues prominent in the Vista Ridge Project that will likely be of concern with other Texas groundwater projects in the near future. These issues involve well mitigation, significant impacts from groundwater production across groundwater conservation district boundaries, meaningful consideration of nine factors in Texas Water Code §36.108(d), the balance between limiting groundwater production, development of fair share doctrines, the role of the Texas Water Development Board in the

The Inclusion Paradox: Why Inclusive Space Excludes Migrant Children, and Vice Versa

What characteristics of space predict exclusive policies? Intuitively, socioeconomically exclusive spaces – such as wealthy urban centers in China – would also be exclusive in welfare provision. Drawing from cross-district comparisons within a Chinese metropolis, we identify a counterintuitive pattern where the urban center had easier migrant school access policies than the urban fringe. This pattern has existed in both the 2010s and 2020s, surviving a major school admissions policy reform. We call this pattern the inclusion paradox. The inclusion paradox can be attributed to two causes: a compartmentalization of school access along urban district boundaries, and a tendency of fringe districts to carry more migrant population with less fiscal capacity. As a result of the inclusion paradox, migrant children were more likely excluded from school access precisely where they were more likely to live. The inclusion paradox implies that policy exclusion and spatial exclusion substitute each other, a pattern that brings migrant school access in China in conversation with unequal school access in other contexts.

A practical optimization framework for political redistricting: A case study in Arizona

Following the decennial census, each state in the U.S. redraws its congressional and state legislative district boundaries, which must satisfy various legal criteria. For example, Arizona’s Constitution describes six legal criteria, including contiguity, population balance, competitiveness, compactness, and the preservation of communities of interest, political subdivisions and majority–minority districts, each of which is to be enforced “to the extent practicable”. Optimization algorithms are well suited to draw district maps, although existing models and methods have limitations that inhibit their ability to draw legally-valid maps. Adapting existing optimization methods presents two major challenges: the complexity of modeling to achieve multiple and subjective criteria, and the computational intractability when dealing with large redistricting input graphs. In this paper, we present a multi-stage optimization framework tailored to redistricting in Arizona. This framework combines key features from existing methods, such as a multilevel algorithm that reduces graph input sizes and a larger local search neighborhood that encourages faster exploration of the solution space. This framework heuristically optimizes geographical compactness and political competitiveness while ensuring that other criteria in Arizona’s Constitution are satisfied relative to existing norms. Compared to Arizona’s enacted map (CD118) to be used until 2032, the most compact map produced by the algorithm is 41% more compact, and the most competitive map has five more competitive districts. To enable accessibility and to promote future research, we have created Optimap, a publicly accessible tool to interact with a part of this framework. Beyond the creation of these maps, this case study demonstrates the positive impact of adapting optimization-based methodologies for political redistricting in practice.

German yield and area data for 11 crops from 1979 to 2021 at a harmonized spatial resolution of 397 districts

Long time series with spatially highly resolved crop data are important for research projects on numerous future challenges in the environment and food sector. In this publication, we describe a dataset with crop-yield and area data for Germany from 1979 to 2021. The data are spatially resolved to 397 districts, which have an average size of 900 km2, and include the crops spring barley, winter barley, grain maize, silage maize, oats, potatoes, winter rape, rye, sugarbeet, triticale and winter wheat. The crop-yield data cover, on average, about 9.5 million hectares per year and 80% of Germany’s total arable land. The dataset contains 214,820 yield and area data points. These were obtained by collecting and digitizing crop data from multiple statistical sources and transforming the data to match the district boundaries in 2020. Potential applications of the data include the analysis of interactions between agricultural yields and environmental factors, such as weather; the validation of yield prediction methodologies or the analysis of yield-loss risks in agriculture.

Sedimentological and geochemical traces of metallurgical activity in the Świślina River valley (central Poland) at the Doły Biskupie site

Abstract Prehistoric and historic iron metallurgy in the Holy Cross Mountains in central Poland developed along with human Przeworsk Culture activity (during the Roman period) and within the boundaries of the Old-Polish Industrial District (OPID) during the Middle Ages and during recent centuries. At the Świślina catchment, there are many archaeological sites showing intense prehistoric metallurgical activity. The later medieval and modern iron industry was significantly smaller. At the Doły Biskupie site, slags and microscopic iron spherules (hammerscales) were found in alluvia. The microscopic spherules separation method (MSS) enabled analysis of these small artefacts created during iron ore smelting and forging. Iron spherules were detected in floodplain sediments, which are characterized by increased content of trace elements. The presence of these artefacts in shallow sediment layers in the confluence section of the river may be an indicator of archaeologically confirmed prehistoric metallurgical activity in the catchment area. Study of these residues enabled an attempt to reconstruct the river valley environment during the prehistoric and historical period. The MSS method can be used to detect iron spherules in alluvia in other river catchments, confirming the presence of yet-undiscovered bloomery sites.

Проведение мониторинга поверхностного покрова территории города Читы по материалам дистанционного зондирования

Natural areas where settlements are located are a subject to constant anthropogenic impact, which has a negative impact on the environmental situation. In this regard, it becomes relevant to monitor the surface cover of such territories, using remote sensing data. The object of the study is the territory of the urban district “City of Chita”. The purpose is to conduct a spatiotemporal analysis of changes in the va­lues of the NDVI vegetation index from satellite images from 2016 to 2023, to identify natural and artificially created forms of surface cover, describe their quantitative and qualitative composition within the boundaries of the urban district, as well as establish the nature of the dynamics of changes in the obtained values. The research objectives are as follows: preparation and collection of materials for remote sensing of the Earth; description of the territory and structural forms of the surface cover of Chita based on the NDVI index. The following research methodology and me­thods are used: methods of visual and automated decryption of multispectral images; geoinformation methods for analyzing raster and vector data. Archival multispectral Sentinel-2 images for the specified period have been used in the research process. A classification of surface cover forms of the studied territory has been carried out, and an assessment of changes in their areas over an 8-year period has been made for the administrative districts of the city (Tsentralny, Ingodinsky, Chernovsky and Zheleznodorozhny). Monitoring the surface cover of urbanized areas, using vegetation indices obtained from remote sensing data (e. g. Sentinel-2) allows to obtain up-to-date information on the quantitative and qualitative state of vegetation. The above mentioned has helped to make reasoned decisions in the field of territorial planning and urban development, including planning of protected areas, recreation parks, and public gardens in Chita.

ГРАДОСТРОИТЕЛЬНЫЕ ОГРАНИЧЕНИЯ ДЛЯ РАЗВИТИЯ ТЕРРИТОРИИ МИКРОРАЙОНА ИРКУТСК-2

The article considers zone, located within the boundaries of the Irkutsk-2 micro district, with special conditions for territory use (ZSCUT). The authors carried out the analysis of such zones impact on ecological situation and prospects for that territory development. Special attention is paid to the integrated development of the territory, i.e. the built-up areas development as a way to ensure balanced and sustainable development of the neighborhood.