Points List to Represent US population

Using the US Census tracts, along with 2000 data on population and the latitiue and longitude of the tract centroids, I have created a list designed to represetn US population. The list was compiled in the following steps:

1. Start with one point and allocate it to the full set of tracts
2. Find the geographic mean of all tracts in a set using Census methods
3. Divide the set along an east-west or a north-south axis depedning on from which axis there exists a greater deviation within the set
4. Allocate any points from the old set to the 2 new sets based on their proportion of population, rounding to the nearest integer
5. With the new sets, repeat steps 2-4.
6. Once all points are assigned to individual tracts, stop.
7. Repeat full process from step 1 starting with 2 points, 3 points, etc.

For each iteration, the tracts which had points allocated from the previous round will remain and one new tract is added. This can go on for over 10,000 iterations before individual tracts will wind up with more than one point.

Example if we start with 8 points. The full country is split east-west and 5 points are allocated to the east, 3 to the west based on population. In the east, 3 of the 5 points are allocated to the north half, and 2 to the south. Among the 2 in the south, 1 goes to the more central south, and 1 to the farther south. At this point, points are awarded 1-0 at each split, with the point always going to the more populated subset. For the mid-south, this point finally gets allocated to a tract in Atlanta. For the more distant south, the point ends at a tract in Miami.

The list that is produced by this method up to 50 follows. Rather than list the tract, which won't mean anything to most, I'll list the zip code place name it is in.

1. New York, NY
2. Los Angeles, CA
3. Atlanta, GA
4. Dallas, TX
5. Chicago, IL
6. Takoma Park, MD
7. San Francisco, CA
8. Miami, FL
9. Detroit, MI
10. Kansas City, MO
11. Somerville, MA
12. Anaheim, CA
13. Charlotte, NC
14. Indianapolis, IN
15. Albuquerque, NM
16. Baton Rouge, LA
17. Buffalo, NY
18. Seattle, WA
19. Columbus, OH
20. Wheat Ridge, CO
21. Birmingham, AL
22. South Richmond Hill, NY
23. North Las Vegas, NV
24. Milwaukee, WI
25. Houston, TX
26. Raleigh, NC
27. Philadelphia, PA
28. Berkeley, CA
29. Cleveland, OH
30. Orlando, FL
31. Minneapolis, MN
32. Lowell, MA
33. Phoenix, AZ
34. Brooklyn, NY
35. Knoxville, TN
36. Austin, TX
37. Naperville, IL
38. Pinellas Park, FL
39. Downey, CA
40. Oakton, VA
41. Tulsa, OK
42. Pittsburgh, PA
43. Greensboro, NC
44. Portland, OR
45. Bronx, NY
46. Shreveport, LA
47. St. Louis, MO
48. Nashville, TN
49. San Fernando Valley, CA
50. Bethlehem, PA