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Using Maps to Understand Your Constituents: New York City Council Redistricting. Howard Shih April 3, 2014. Overview. Reveal impact of changes in City Council Districts on representation in the Asian American community in New York City
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Using Maps to Understand Your Constituents: New York City Council Redistricting Howard Shih April 3, 2014
Overview • Reveal impact of changes in City Council Districts on representation in the Asian American community in New York City • Provide a means of reaching out to Council Members regarding their growing Asian constituents • Time permitting, also present some of the findings from our similar briefs on State Assembly and Senate Districts.
Topics covered: • Population and growth • Asian ethnic group population detail • Languages spoken
Challenges • City Council districts are built from Census Block data • Data on Asian ethnic group populations and languages spoken only available at Census Tract level • Presenting population data and old and new district boundaries on a map.
Allocating Census Tract Level Data to Census Blocks • We assume that Asian ethnic group populations were distributed the same as Asian populations as a whole across the Census Blocks of any Census Tract. • Example: if 20% of Asians in Census Tract A resided in Census Block A.1, then 20% of Chinese in Census Tract A were allocated to Census Block A.1. District Boundary Census Block A.1 Census Block A.2 Census Tract A
Creating the Dataset • Languages were allocated using the distribution of total population across Census Blocks within each Census Tract. • Once Census Tract data was allocated across the Census Blocks, City Council District data was tabulated based on the definitions provided by the city. Each Census Block was assigned to a single City Council District.
Difference between City Council and State Legislative District Briefs • State legislative districting had been completed in early 2012 in time for the November 2012 election cycle. • Hence, emphasis of briefs was on new districts without comparison to old districts.
Outreach • Inform the community of the impact of changes due to redistricting. • Coverage in local Chinese- and Korean- language press. • Resource for language access advocates. • Initiate dialogue with key office holders • Letters to office holders. • Follow-up meetings resulting in additional data requests and maps to help with constituent outreach.