Is your legislative district gerrymandered? We have some pretty odd-shaped districts here in Pennsylvania, and other states are known for some, er, creative map making.

An online database, redistrictingnation.com uses map-based geometry to rank Congressional and state legislative districts. Here is a screen shot for the 13th District of Pennsylvania:

The map itself shows the highlighted district, and the bar charts on the right rank the shape of the district using several geometry-based formulas (which are explained). Districts that rank 'low' on these charts MIGHT be gerrymandered - other factors play into districting, of course (for example, Cape Cod ranks pretty low, but the ocean probably has something to do with that).

This is a good basis for questioning and research.

UPDATE 2/15 : Google has just discontinued their real estate map function, citing low usage and an abundance of other sites that carry RE listings. Too bad, since most of those sites are geared toward purchasing homes as opposed to foreclosure research.

This information is available in map form on Hotpads.com, but their map is not embeddeble. It is good for research purposes (to find current foreclosures). A full search would involve a trip to the county land records office to build a database from their records).

Try this Google map trick:

Search for an address in Google maps, and add the word 'foreclosure'

You will get a map like this:



View Larger Map

As far as I can tell, these are just foreclosed properties that are for sale, many more are likely in various stages of foreclosure that are not this advanced.

There is also a 'foreclosure' checkbox under 'show options' on the left side of the Google map page, but though this worked for me last week I am not having any luck with it this week. The result is the same, however.