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Partition or group a set of small population units into
a specified number of larger clusters/districts/territories,
so that each cluster looks good according to various measures.
This problem arises in the design of political districts,
sales territories, and other clustering applications.
This model considers six features/measures:
1) Size Similarity: the population assigned to each cluster should be
close to the same for all clusters,
2) Closeness: the average distance of the units in a cluster from the
cluster center should be small, e.g., if transport costs are important,
3) Compactness: The total boundary length of the clusters should be small.
A unitless measure of compactness, called the Polsby-Popper score,
is the ratio 4*PI*Area/Perimeter^2.
For the most compact shape, a circle, this ratio is 1. You cannot
tile any area with circles, the best you can do is regular hexagons,
for which this ratio is .
4) Connected: Each cluster should be connected geographically, i.e., for
any two units in the same cluster, there must be a path connecting them.
In network terminology, each district contains a spanning tree,
5) Feature Similarity: The maximum width of cluster by some measure, e.g.,
time zone difference, should be small,
6) Gerrymandering feature: If each unit has some fraction of its
population belonging to our political party, we want to have a large
number of clusters in which our party has the majority,