Look at North Carolina, where Democrats engineered a district to ensure a minority representative (Democrat, of course) would emerge. It happens all over the place on the part of both parties and it's gross. Moreover, I think that the courts have been too permissive of the districts. They taught us in school that gerrymandering was not allowed, but now it is.

They should use a universal formula: take the southwest corner of your state and draw a square, expanding it until you reach a district size of population. Then move east and keep doing it, and then shift the borders slightly if, at the end of the process, you have a narrow strip at the top of the state. Period.