11/11/14

Passage from "What 60 years of what political gerrymandering looks like"

"While a compact district may be desirable, it doesn’t necessarily reflect how people live or what county and city boundaries look like." Or, as John succinctly puts it, "Representation is about people, not polygons."

First of, this quote was taken from a writer named Seth Masket. What he means by compact distract he is referring to factors such as equal population size, no racial discrimination, compact districts, preservation of county boundaries and preservation of communities of interest. I got this from a passage right before the one I posted here. However, if this is what he is referring to in regards to a desirable compact distract, then I disagree with him when he says it wouldn't necessarily reflect how people live. If a county had an equal population size the people of the county would possibly live more comfortable then those in a county which is over populated. If there were no racial discrimination in a county, the people of those county would live a much easier, comfortable life where they don't have to feel targeted or treated unfairly or unequally. Next Christopher (the blogger) puts in a quote from John Sides who says "Representation is about people, not polygons." This quote is pretty straight forward meaning representation should be about the people and for the people, not about size or gerrymandering or any of that. 

I chose this passage mainly because I liked John Sides statement about representation being about the people and not polygons. It also made me think about everything I had just read in Christopher's two blogs and helped me understand the concept a bit more and connect the concept to these quotes from these writers.