How to intelligently degrade or smooth GIS data (simplifying polygons)?

Question

I have detailed US county maps, from the TIGER LINE data sets. How might I sample, smooth, or degrade the data so that I get straighter, more boxy, less \"noisy\" shapes to

Answer 1

Here's a simple iterative smoothing algorithm:

for each three sequential points on any path, if the middle point has no intersections and is within some small threshold angle of the direct path between the two outer points, remove it.

Repeat until satisfied.