Map Across America Winner: Craig Wilding
The DistrictBuilder team knows that redistricting only gets better when more people are involved. We wanted to host Map Across America in order to engage with mappers and get folks participating in the redistricting process in a fun way. Since the first DistrictBuilder implementation in 2010, we have worked with academics, analysts, and other experts in this field to ensure the latest release of DistrictBuilder would be an effective, easy-to-use tool to draw legal maps. We are fortunate to partner with these subject matter experts and are thankful three of them agreed to judge the competition. The DistrictBuilder team is blown away by the many excellent maps that were submitted and happy to showcase Craig Wilding’s Florida House of Representatives map submission.
About Craig Wilding
Craig is a political science graduate student at the University of Central Florida where he has worked with voter registration, census data, and GIS mapping tools on several projects. He did some volunteer work with the Redistricting Data Hub which helped him learn about the redistricting tools available. The redistricting project touched on all the data, tools, and skills he has been working with for the past two years. You can connect with Craig on LinkedIn here.
Judges Statement
This plan scores exceptionally on majority-minority representation. In addition, it scores well on partisan metrics — including bias, efficiency, and declination. You can check out the metrics for Craig’s map here.
Craig’s Map Narrative
The Osceola Expansion. The big change in the map is around Osceola County and the Walt Disney area. The huge growth in that area of 150,000+ over the new average was enough to have its own district. Districts 39 and 42 shrunk to keep within limits due to the new growth while district 56 essentially became a new district holding all the new population growth in the area. District 55 took up most of what 42 and 56 had. Meanwhile, I didn’t need district 97 as it was absorbed by 104 in the south, so I moved it up to the Osceola area to help take up what was left of 56 and fill other gaps left from growth on the west coast. The other minor change is expanding district 8 in Tallahassee southward to the coastline. This kept it within county boundaries and aligned it with the other districts that are vertically sliced in the panhandle.
We’re thankful for the devoted mappers that have contributed over 50,000 maps to DistrictBuilder to date. Want to get more involved in the redistricting process and map your own future? Start drawing in DistrictBuilder today. Be sure to check out our other Map Across America winners!
