Look to the West: Thread III, Volume IV (Tottenham Nil)!

[B_Munro]

I thought the UPSA was the USA analogue ITTL, meaning it should have a very long stretch of unbelievable luck until it achieves great power status almost by accident.

It lacks a huge, resource-rich frontier area inhabited by easily exterminable indigines and contested only by a relatively far weaker power far from its demographic center.* It needs to have Draka luck to make it to great power status unscathed...

Bruce

*-heck, as I was saying on a DBWI thread, the US essentially came into existence with the resources to be a great power: there's enough mineral resouces and agricultural land east of the Mississippi for the US to outmatch any European nation save Russia. [1]


[1] If we assume no Insane Expansion on the part of the Germans or French, anyway.

 

[Thande]

Well seeing as I liked the little man method so much that I began using it for some maps on Northern Ireland's old Parliament...

The biggest problem IMO is that while you can make a diagonal work when you've just got two seat constituencies, any more than that and it becomes horribly messy. I would dread to think of what the 6 MPs of Yorkshire would look like, nethermind how you'd indicate that the seat for Queen's University Belfast is electing the UUP in all four seats rather than being a single seat, and Down's 6/8 UUP, one Nationalist (NI) and one SF would be ghastly.

Anyway...

For the two seat constituencies on the map above, it could work, but a consistent angle on the diagonal would look better.

I like either Thande, though I agree with Alex Richards that more than two per area is impractical with diagonals.

Also make your diagonals consistent or my brain will explode .

I perfer the "little man" version myself.

Thanks for the comments--obviously I would use a consistent 45 degree angle if I was doing this seriously, I was just doing this quickly as a trial.

(To whoever suggested vertical lines, the reason why I use diagonals is they stand out more: vertical lines are too easy to mistake for two districts next to each other rather than one two-member district, because you might well see straight line horizontal and vertical borders on an American map, but not diagonal ones).

I forget - are they elected by district or do larger units assign their second representative to whoever earns the second-most votes? If it were the former, I'd say split on district lines rather than diagonals, regardless of the inevitable size disparity. Though split sections need a more visible line to identify two seats that went to the same party - the lines you're using are so subtle that I missed them until I really worked over the map.

It's the latter, based on the system used for most seats in the UK until 1885 and then still for a few seats until 1950. The ENA is probably going to go through a similar evolution, with big cities being upped to three members only for this to prove unwieldy and then for them to be split up into several one-member constituencies instead.

 

[W.W.A.F.T.]

as to the map designs, I would say that the "little mans" are more pleasing to the eye, but I get the broad strokes of the election results more quickly from this new method.

for whatever my opinion may be worth.

 

[Analytical Engine]

I don't mind diagonal lines, if it represents simple, low numbers of MP-ish people. If you are going for lots of members per constituency (like with the STV* election map from FaBR that EdT did), the little men are probably the way to go, as you can also indicate which candidate got which "place" more readily like that.




*At least I think it was STV.

 

[Nugax]

I actually think the best way to show the ENA elections would be a infographic map like so http://vielmetti.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4f1a53ef017c332fbd4d970b-600wi where the absolute shapes of the regions is not maintained but instead more human readable shapes come in instead (you'd use something to differentiate city ridings).

However that would be a lot of work and something you really don't want to do till the map stabilises .

 

[Hobelhouse]

I don't think some of those western cities like *Chicago, *Milwaukee etc should have separate seats; they simply weren't big enough in 1832. Chicago was not actually founded OTL until 1833 for instance.

 

[Analytical Engine]

I don't think some of those western cities like *Chicago, *Milwaukee etc should have separate seats; they simply weren't big enough in 1832. Chicago was not actually founded OTL until 1833 for instance.

Well, yes, but a lot of buroughs in Britain IOTL pre 1832 had hardly anyone living in them at the time.

I'm guessing they assign burough status to most of the more prominent provincial capitals - or at least ones where they have backers with deep pockets.

 

[Thande]

I actually think the best way to show the ENA elections would be a infographic map like so http://vielmetti.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4f1a53ef017c332fbd4d970b-600wi where the absolute shapes of the regions is not maintained but instead more human readable shapes come in instead (you'd use something to differentiate city ridings).

However that would be a lot of work and something you really don't want to do till the map stabilises .

I have considered making one of those in the past for the US House of Representatives, but the trouble is there's too much fluxionality that it's a big hassle to work out how the map should be laid out--and that's a case where the seat number only changes every 10 years, never mind like it is with the ENA.

I don't think some of those western cities like *Chicago, *Milwaukee etc should have separate seats; they simply weren't big enough in 1832. Chicago was not actually founded OTL until 1833 for instance.

Ah, but you see this is the 18th century British system, where a town can have a seat while having zero inhabitants The ENA has a decidedly cleaned-up version but it is still the case that the enfranchisement of a borough is more due to backroom deals than anything, and there is no constitutional requirement for it to be tied to population size. IIRC my logic here was that the Patriots (whose voter coalition was crumbling at the time) were enfranchising western boroughs with few people in the hope that they could buy off the small number of voters and thus win easy extra seats, but the Neutrals scuttled their ambitions by being a genuine western settler populist party that overcame any bribe attempts. It was also out of a balance issue because the Whigs were enfranchising more slaveholder boroughs in the Caribbean, similar to the Missouri Compromise logic of OTL.

 

[Hobelhouse]

Ah, but you see this is the 18th century British system, where a town can have a seat while having zero inhabitants The ENA has a decidedly cleaned-up version but it is still the case that the enfranchisement of a borough is more due to backroom deals than anything, and there is no constitutional requirement for it to be tied to population size. IIRC my logic here was that the Patriots (whose voter coalition was crumbling at the time) were enfranchising western boroughs with few people in the hope that they could buy off the small number of voters and thus win easy extra seats, but the Neutrals scuttled their ambitions by being a genuine western settler populist party that overcame any bribe attempts. It was also out of a balance issue because the Whigs were enfranchising more slaveholder boroughs in the Caribbean, similar to the Missouri Compromise logic of OTL.

It would be a very small number of voters indeed, as around this time OTL the Chicago area had about 200 inhabitants. It would probably be smaller TTL as many of its New Englander founders would be going to Canada instead. Seems more likely they should pick Kaskaskia or someplace downstate that actually had people; Chicago did not really become a major city until the railroad era. The province should probably be named something else too since the Chicago River is not a large river and has not obtained its OTL importance by being hooked up to the Mississippi yet.

IDK, I think it would be a bit too outrageous to grant a borough to a place that doesn't actually exist yet...

 

[Hobelhouse]

Fun Fact: Springfield was settled by Southerners who were so, um, passionate that its original name was Calhoun. Not for nothing was downstate Illinois a major Klan stronghold...

TTL they probably aren't there either, they're probably in Cuba. There really shouldn't be anyone but Indians in the Western Midwest really.

 

[Thande]

It would be a very small number of voters indeed, as around this time OTL the Chicago area had about 200 inhabitants. It would probably be smaller TTL as many of its New Englander founders would be going to Canada instead. Seems more likely they should pick Kaskaskia or someplace downstate that actually had people; Chicago did not really become a major city until the railroad era. The province should probably be named something else too since the Chicago River is not a large river and has not obtained its OTL importance by being hooked up to the Mississippi yet.

IDK, I think it would be a bit too outrageous to grant a borough to a place that doesn't actually exist yet...

It's named after the original French fort: the name Chicago (spelled a variety of fun-loving ways, of which the one I've got with is one of the duller ones) appears on maps as early as the 1720s. "We want to a borough somewhere out west, let's put a borough there, I've heard of there, there was a fort there", etc.

NB. I'm not being closed minded here, I would very much appreciate more ideas about possible alternate towns/cities that might be bigger in TTL and eventually get representation if you have them; it's just that I'm trying to make the point that it's hardly unusual for this sort of thing to happen in reality. Louisiana, to take an extreme example, for a long time had a state legislature where each county had one representative, meaning that the entire city of New Orleans elected one and a county out west where literally zero people lived also elected one. People saw this was ridiculous, but predictably it took a long time before it was changed.

 

[Thande]

Just as proof of this, here's a map from 1742 which shows the name "Checagou". You get the impression it was a nigh inevitable name for a city that would one day be founded there just because it seems to be one of those names that is used to fill 'unknown interior space' on a lot of these maps. Also note that Lake Michigan was often called Lake Illinois instead at that point (on reflection I could have had this retained in LTTW, but that might be being different for the sake of being different).

 

[Hobelhouse]

NB. I'm not being closed minded here, I would very much appreciate more ideas about possible alternate towns/cities that might be bigger in TTL and eventually get representation if you have them; it's just that I'm trying to make the point that it's hardly unusual for this sort of thing to happen in reality. Louisiana, to take an extreme example, for a long time had a state legislature where each county had one representative, meaning that the entire city of New Orleans elected one and a county out west where literally zero people lived also elected one. People saw this was ridiculous, but predictably it took a long time before it was changed.

St. Louis makes sense. On the whole I think they'd go with Mississippi river towns like Kaskaskia, which was a major French colonial town and the original capital of Illinois; OTL it got wiped out by a flood and is now a village of 14 people, but at its peak it had 7,000 people. Not New York City but better than nothing and it might well cause the town to actually be important TTL. *Cleveland might warrant another seat, with the Mississippi mouth controlled by Louisiana I suspect the Ohio and Erie Canal was built earlier so much of the Ohio river trade is probably passing through it.

Chicago will probably be slightly smaller than OTL; the city is essentially the crossroads of the US, but the ENA has much less arable western territory, at least at this point. There will be less Mississippi traffic since Louisiana has the river mouth but OTOH Chicago will capture a greater share of it.

 

[Thande]

St. Louis makes sense. On the whole I think they'd go with Mississippi river towns like Kaskaskia, which was a major French colonial town and the original capital of Illinois; OTL it got wiped out by a flood and is now a village of 14 people, but at its peak it had 7,000 people. Not New York City but better than nothing and it might well cause the town to actually be important TTL. *Cleveland might warrant another seat, with the Mississippi mouth controlled by Louisiana I suspect the Ohio and Erie Canal was built earlier so much of the Ohio river trade is probably passing through it.

Chicago will probably be slightly smaller than OTL; the city is essentially the crossroads of the US, but the ENA has much less arable western territory, at least at this point. There will be less Mississippi traffic since Louisiana has the river mouth but OTOH Chicago will capture a greater share of it.

Thanks for those ideas--I will incorporate them the next time the ENA enfranchises more boroughs.

Eventually of course this system will have to be reformed: its creators were inspired by the then current complaints about Britain's Parliament: "There are rotten boroughs with no people that elect MPs, and there are big cities with lots of people that don't elect any, because they're new, and it's too difficult to create new seats. Therefore let's have a system where we start with no rotten boroughs and can easily add new seats when cities get bigger". Unfortunately not realising that not defining exactly when you can add new seats, coupled to making it easy to do so, means it's easy for the party in power to effectively create new rotten boroughs rather than just happening to inherit ones that were once cities. Especially when they can argue 'well it's growing fast so it'll have lots of people soon enough!' Soon I'm going to write about political interests in the ENA which are dissatisfied with this, among other things, especially since Britain has now radically changed its own voting system and franchise.

 

[Hobelhouse]

Eventually of course this system will have to be reformed: its creators were inspired by the then current complaints about Britain's Parliament: "There are rotten boroughs with no people that elect MPs, and there are big cities with lots of people that don't elect any, because they're new, and it's too difficult to create new seats. Therefore let's have a system where we start with no rotten boroughs and can easily add new seats when cities get bigger". Unfortunately not realising that not defining exactly when you can add new seats, coupled to making it easy to do so, means it's easy for the party in power to effectively create new rotten boroughs rather than just happening to inherit ones that were once cities. Especially when they can argue 'well it's growing fast so it'll have lots of people soon enough!' Soon I'm going to write about political interests in the ENA which are dissatisfied with this, among other things, especially since Britain has now radically changed its own voting system and franchise.

Indeed this will be a problem. One way to make this come to a head might be to have them pick a town on the Mississippi that soon after gets wiped out by a flood; thus creating a rotten borough in the supposedly 'fair' system. The Flood of 1844 ruined the harbor of Independence, Missouri, causing many of the settlers to move to the site of OTL Kansas City; that might be a good candidate.

 

[Thande]

Indeed this will be a problem. One way to make this come to a head might be to have them pick a town on the Mississippi that soon after gets wiped out by a flood; thus creating a rotten borough in the supposedly 'fair' system. The Flood of 1844 ruined the harbor of Independence, Missouri, causing many of the settlers to move to the site of OTL Kansas City; that might be a good candidate.

Good idea, I was thinking of doing something with that. And wasn't there a big earthquake around this time as well? Or that might have been a few years earlier...

 

[mowque]

*raises hand slowly* So what do the white circles depict on the electoral map?

 

[Evan]

Good idea, I was thinking of doing something with that. And wasn't there a big earthquake around this time as well? Or that might have been a few years earlier...

You're talking about the New Madrid Earthquake of 1812?

Great ideas about the growing rottenness of the boroughs, too.

 

[Thande]

*raises hand slowly* So what do the white circles depict on the electoral map?

Borough constituencies (cities) as opposed to province constituencies (the rest of the province excluding the cities). That was the norm under the British system (technically still is, but the distinction is now largely meaningless) except that here of course it's county rather than province constituencies for the rural ones.

 

[mowque]

Borough constituencies (cities) as opposed to province constituencies (the rest of the province excluding the cities). That was the norm under the British system (technically still is, but the distinction is now largely meaningless) except that here of course it's county rather than province constituencies for the rural ones.

So *Pittsburgh then, in Western PA?