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I agree it's hard to fill any political position with non-partisans, not too different than what we have presently.
I also agree it's difficult to 'optimize' for many inputs / variables simultaneously.
Given that; I think having a set number of candidate maps perhaps with different measures of compactness and / or different weightings of the well justified rules. The apolitical / political could then vote / choose among the candidate maps. This I believe would still be a more apolitical and transparent process than what we have now.
That members of one party may choose to live in cities, disproportionately, doesn't strike me as an argument in favor of not adopting a more transparent process. Nor do I find the argument that if we don't gerrymander, Republicans win, convincing.
With regard to voting on a selection of maps--one of the issues here is you can get pretty big effects from nudging lines a relatively small amount, or at least what looks like a small amount from looking at a map. As a practical matter, voters are just going to be considering big-picture aesthetics, and no matter how you rigorously define a "fair map," the difference between a fair map and an artfully-drawn map is really difficult to detect, much more so than I'd expect voters to want to master. It's actually a strong example of a policy area better handled through representation, which just takes us back to politically-drawn maps.
I should explain my last point better. It's not that there's a problem with Republicans winning a disproportionately large amount of the time--I would cough prefer that, myself. The problem is any specific party winning way more reliably and more often than relative vote totals suggest they should. Even if--as here--it would only be a result of neutral rules applied to the aggregate of people freely deciding where to live, the disproportionate result looks and feels unfair, which undermines popular happiness with the system and societal stability. Some of that is inevitable! But elections are supposed to generate results broadly reflective of underlying support over time, and an institutional skew in one direction cuts against that.
From the maps I've seen i don't know that Republicans would be more likely to win in cities. I think they would be more likely to win in rural districts areas that sometimes include pie slices or slivers of the nearest city.
My preference would be to have the computer nudge the line based on publicly available inputs, weightings and published algorithm. Now the line is nudged due to a wink and a handshake or a horsetrade to keep / make a safe seat.
I'd rather argue over the inputs and design of the algorithm to be used over the entire state than the boundary or shape of any specific district. I'd expect wins and losses in any redistricting. If you believe compact non-gerrymandered districts would benefit Republicans that suggests to me they're disadvantaged presenty.
Republicans are rather unlikely to win very many city council seats in large cities, no matter what method you use. For state legislatures, though, the advantage of cities for Republicans is that they come pre-packed--it's trivial to draw compact districts where Democrats have a huge margin, which writes off those districts, but by concentrating opposition voters, allows for more success elsewhere. And yes, a mostly suburban/rural district with a small slice of city is generally a winnable district for Republicans, and an example of cracking.
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