PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The election watchdog group Committee of Seventy is offering advice to Philadelphia City Council, based on dozens of workshops and community input meetings, as it redraws district boundaries to reflect the 2020 U.S. Census.
The city grew in population between 2010 and 2020, but Committee of Seventy policy director Pat Christmas says not all parts of the city grew evenly.
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"The First District, which includes South Philly, parts of Kensington, Fishtown, Northern Liberties, a lot of new residents, a lot of development, that district has grown," Christmas said. "The Fifth District, Center City, which includes a good piece of Center City and the development that’s happened there, a lot of growth."
Meanwhile the Fourth and Eighth districts — in the West and Northwest — each lost about 10,000 people. But in rebalancing the districts, Christmas says the public puts a priority on making sure that communities of interest, including neighborhoods and business corridors, stay together in the same council district.
"This is the difference between our council redistricting and the state and congressional levels, where of course partisanship or competitiveness really kind of dominates the discussion," he said.
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The current districts divide some neighborhoods and business corridors such as Oxford Circle and Kensington, though Christmas says by and large the map is compact — not like the wildly gerrymandered map after the 2000 census.
Another factor the Committee is asking Council to consider is assigning citizens living in city jails to their home addresses rather than inflating the population of the far Northeast.
Several versions of a new district map are circulating among members but a final proposal is not expected until council reconvenes on Jan. 20. It must pass new districts by Feb. 12.
The city charter mandates there be at least one public hearing on the new boundaries.
Christmas says he worries about the timeline. There will be just three weeks between introduction and the deadline for passage, not a lot of time to give the public much input into the process.