Cube Root Rule Legislative Districts

[Torie]

What is the theory behind the cube root thing?  I am just curious. That is about 330 districts in California by the way. Do we really want that many nebbishes and losers prowling around Sacramento getting into trouble at taxpayer expense?  It is bad enough just having 40 and 80 clowns (and most of them are clowns) up there for the respective chambers.

[Torie]

Of course, city councils are usually way off, for example, San Francisco has only 11 for a population of 800,000.

While Frankfurt has 93 for a population of 650,000.

Similarly Chicago has 50 aldermen, one per ward, and the rule would predict 142 for 2.85 M people.

For smaller cities divided into wards IL state law provides a statutory number of aldermen (two per ward) on the city council, though that number can be changed in certain cases (and generally reduced) by referendum or ordinance. IL law seems to use just under half the number of aldermen predicted by the cube root rule.

Population Range	Aldermen	Cube Root Prediction
up to 3 K	6	0 to 14
3 K to 15 K	8	15 to 24
15 K to 20 K	10	25 to 27
20 K to 50 K	14	28 to 36
50 K to 70 K	16	37 to 41
70 K to 90 K	18	42 to 44
90 K to 500 K	20	45 to 79

Those numbers in a city council I think would generate chaos myself.

[Torie]

muon2, when I used the word "chaos" I was thinking of Chicago having 142 aldermen. I "know" Chicago.