Quote:
Originally Posted by McBane
Exactly.
Allovertown, just to clarify, you think it's odd for Fairmount and Society Hill to be in a single district but Society Hill with Port Richmond makes sense? Fitler Square belongs with North Philly but not with Old City? Why is it your kneejerk reaction to always defend everything the City does, not matter how dysfunctional it may be? And to answer your question, besides wealth: more educated, more diverse, less families, more young professionals and empty nesters; is that enough? Now please list all the things that Society Hill and Port Richmond have in common.
|
I think you have me confused with someone else. I love criticizing Philadelphia government. Who doesn't love shooting fish in a barrel?
I'd say we disagree on the purpose of electoral districts. You seem to think the goal should be to get as many of the same type of people in one district. You suggested a district should be all of center city and then because that's not enough people... just throw in any other gentrified part of the city with them. Lol I mean, you're literally describing how people gerrymander. You have a goal in mind, namely more power for wealthy people and you're nakedly setting out to achieve that goal. It doesn't even matter to you which parts of town are grouped together in a district as long as you achieve your goal.
Center City is not some unified entity. Seems perfectly sensible that districts in Philadelphia would come out of center city sort of like a pinwheel, tying center city neighborhoods with the neighborhoods outside of center city that are geographically near them following the major thoroughfares, transit lines, and geographical features that tie them together.
As I admitted, I'm sure there is some gerrymandering going on with city council districts. But come on. Look at some of the gerrymandered districts elsewhere in this country. Philly has nothing like that. These are all fairly compact districts that group together nearby neighborhoods.
If you wanted to feed all of this info into a computer and have a computer automatically spit out the most balanced and fair districts as possible, I'd be all for that. Let's totally eliminate gerrymandering from the equation. Though in such a scenario I highly doubt the computer would decide to group together the entirety of center city and whatever other wealthy enclaves it can piece together throughout the city to get enough people for a district.