# Individual Fairness in Graph Decomposition

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.00213 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.00213/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 31 May 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Intersectional Divergence: Measuring Fairness in Regression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.00830/) (2025)
- [A Critical Review of Predominant Bias in Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11031/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper, we consider classic randomized low diameter decomposition procedures for planar graphs that obtain connected clusters which are cohesive in that close-by pairs of nodes are assigned to the same cluster with high probability. We require the additional aspect of individual fairness - pairs of nodes at comparable distances should be separated with comparable probability. We show that classic decomposition procedures do not satisfy this property. We present novel algorithms that achieve various trade-offs between this property and additional desiderata of connectivity of the clusters and optimality in the number of clusters. We show that our individual fairness bounds may be difficult to improve by tying the improvement to resolving a major open question in metric embeddings. We finally show the efficacy of our algorithms on real planar networks modeling congressional redistricting.