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Originally Posted by loquitur
Has there been any comparison to other countries with smaller districts? Again, to use the UK as an example, the House of Commons has over 600 "ridings" represented, in a population roughly 20% of the US. Are the people in those ridings better represented than people in congressional districts? Are there studies of such things? How would you measure the quality of representation?
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That is an excellent question!
"Are there studies of such things?" -- I believe the answer is no, but at a later time I should research this some more.
I believe that one problem with such an analysis is the subjective (normative) aspect of it with respect to evaluating who is "better represented". That is, it would be difficult to do this without bringing one's ideology into the evaluation. It would probably have to be based upon citizen surveys, but then, on what basis would a citizen make such a judgement if they have not lived (as a voting citizen) in a different country.
Anyway, if you want to see some related data, scroll down to the "doughnut chart" chart on this page:
http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/section_III.htm
which compares the population per Rep of lower houses (there's also a link to additional data). I suppose everyone will have to draw their own conclusions.