Dividing Detroit into Council Districts: How Would YOU Do It?

[cman710]

Have 13 districts, with one council member from each district; no at-large members. The council should elect its own president and vice-president.

Districts could be something like this:

1 - CBD
2 - Near West Side and Corktown
3 - Southwest Detroit and Delray
4 - Near Northwest and Middle Grand River Corridor
5 - Far Northwest
6 - Warrendale and Far West
7 - North End
8 - Sherwood Forest, Palmer Woods, Green Acres
9 - Near East Side, Lafayette Park
10 - Near Northeast and Middle Gratiot Corridor, City Airport area
11 - Far North and Northeast
12 - Indian Village to Jefferson East
13 - East English Village, Morningside, Balduck Park area

This way, all areas get represented.

Fury13, I agree that there do not need to be at-large members. While I am not completely opposed to the idea, I think that having legislative body members represent a district-based constituency has many benefits.

At any rate, one factor that will need to be considered is the population of whatever districts are created. Since the 1964 Supreme Court decision in Reynolds v. Sims, "one person, one vote" is required in apportioning electoral districts. Therefore, at least at the time the districts are initially drawn up, the populations of each district will need to be nearly the same. Then, the districts would need to be redrawn every 10 years based on census data. As a result, I think the best that will practically happen is to do the districts roughly by geography, and then play with the district lines to account for population.

[kathy2trips]

.......Since the 1964 Supreme Court decision in Reynolds v. Sims, "one person, one vote" is required in apportioning electoral districts. Therefore, at least at the time the districts are initially drawn up, the populations of each district will need to be nearly the same. Then, the districts would need to be redrawn every 10 years based on census data. As a result, I think the best that will practically happen is to do the districts roughly by geography, and then play with the district lines to account for population.

You know, that's an excellent point. Anyone know of a link to a population map of Detroit?