Baltimore City has 14 city council districts, each represented by one council person. The city’s charter requires the districts to be re-evaluated, in a process called redistricting, after every census.
Baltimore began that process last month when Mayor Brandon Scott proposed a map that would redraw all of those districts to have around 42,000 people each — evening out a city that has been losing population, especially in some of its predominantly Black neighborhoods, over the last decade. “The proposed map will rebalance our City Council Districts to ensure equal representation for city residents,” said Mayor Scott in a statement introducing the map on September 18th.
But in doing so, some neighborhoods with civically active community associations and strong relationships to their current council districts are finding themselves moved elsewhere or split in two. The city council is currently weighing whether they will add their own amendments to the map, especially after holding two town halls to get community feedback. By charter, a map must be passed regardless by November 17th or the mayor’s version becomes law.
Districts One and 11, which include Fell’s Point and Federal Hill respectively, bucked the population decline trend and grew exponentially since the 2010 census; each has about 52,000 people and so the mayor’s map compensates by putting some of that population into neighboring districts.
Bolton Hill, currently represented by Councilmember Eric Costello of District 11, is one neighborhood that would be split in two councilmanic areas. At an October meeting of the Bolton Hill Community Association, board member Jim Prost worried that would be an issue. “We’ve been working so hard to unify the neighborhood. We don’t want a LoBo and NoBo,” he said. Bolton Hill, like many Baltimore neighborhoods, has a strong neighborhood association that works to advocate for things like traffic calming on the busy streets of Lafayette and Mount Royal. Prost said that in its current state, the neighborhood has the ability to advocate for itself.
“That kind of reduces our leverage, reduces our power, reduces the relationships,” he said of the mayor’s proposal which divides the community in half at McMechen Street.
Read more (and listen) at WYPR.
