in on how it has ended up. I want to be clear that I'm speaking only for
myself, not for Cam.
The new map is quite bad. I want to be clear that it won't have much negative
effect on me personally; though the map removes a large number of voters in
Seward that we have great relationships with, I believe that Cam can win the
new Ward 2, should he seek reelection.
But many aspects of the new map are frankly embarrassing.
Take the new Ward 6. By any measure of compactness it is significantly less
compact than both the existing Ward 6 and the Ward 6 in the 2/15 map. It
follows no existing geographical boundaries, reaching strange little psedopods
over I-35, I-94 and Highway 55 to use some of the lowest-volume streets in
Minneapolis (like 30th Ave S in Seward) as its borders. My friend and fellow
Second Warder (until this map) Sheldon Mains' description of the new Ward 6 is
apt: "Guthriemandering," after the theater's "bridge to nowhere" architectural
feature.
More importantly, at least as far as the near south side, this is the
"Neighborhoods Don't Matter" map. Ward 6 has parts of 6 neighborhoods in it,
but all of only two. So the Ward 6 Council Member will have to partially
represent four neighborhoods: Seward, the West Bank, Stevens Square and Elliot
Park. And Ward 6 isn't alone: Ward 2 incorporates part, but not all, of
Seward, Como, the West Bank and Longfellow. (And check out what happened to
Longfellow: a narrow strip between Hwy 55 and Minnehaha will be in Ward 9. How
much attention are they likely to get from a Council Member who now only
represents the other side of such a major divider? Why did the Commission do
this?)
And the process made clear that neighborhoods didn't matter. A group of people
from outside of Seward advocated that the neighborhood be divided between 2 and
6. A group of people who actually live in the neighborhood, with the support
of the neighborhood organization, forcefully and clearly advocated for staying
cohesive and whole in one ward. Those who actually call Seward home were
ignored.
This map is so hostile to neighborhood cohesion that fracturing neighborhoods
may as well have been the Charter Commission's stated aim.
And about those stated aims. It's been fascinating and frustrating to watch
the body adopt a set of key principles only to ignore them completely or follow
them very selectively. The Redistricting Group said that it believed in
changing the boundaries as little as necessary, and that it didn't want to
divide communities of interest, and that it would create wards that were
compact and contiguous. It then adopted a map that changed boundaries with
wild abandon, completely ignored geographically-based communities of interest
(like neighborhoods), and created a Ward 6 that is simply nowhere near as
compact as what it replaced (or other options that were considered).
I understand that all of these principles were disregarded in an effort to meet
a singular countervailing goal (that was not actually adopted by the group, but
that's beside the point): to create minority opportunity districts. I
understand where this impulse came from.
But in attempting to meet this goal, the map has a host of negative
consequences that simply weren't taken seriously. It concentrates minority
communities in a few wards while making surrounding wards much less diverse.
It creates two opportunity wards (or, to be technical, one more opportunity
ward than the 2/15 map), but at the cost of dramatically reducing the number of
minority influence wards. It concentrates poverty in a few wards while
increasing the wealth of surrounding wards. It divides geographic
neighborhoods in ways that I believe will do real and lasting damage to
neighborhood organizations.
The 2002 redistricting process was terrible. In terms of its results, this one
wasn't much better. I question my own past support for giving this power to
the Charter Commission.
Robin Garwood
Cooper