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Software helps city draw new district boundaries
Redistricting effort goes faster with changes in real time
By Kate Carter
All it takes is a quick point and a click to put all of Willow Glen into a single city council district. But it takes input from city residents and members of the redistricting commission to keep it there.
Members of the city's planning department are using a computer program to help the redistricting commission decide how to change council district boundaries to reflect changes in San Jose's population. Without it, Deputy Planning Director Kent Edens said, the process would require a lot more human number-crunching and take a lot longer.
This isn't the first time the city has used computer software--called geographic information system software, or GIS--to help redraw its districts, Edens said. Computers were involved in the 1991 redistricting, using 1990 U.S. Census data.
But this year, commission members and community meeting participants can immediately see how moving a boundary in one district would affect its population and the populations of the adjacent districts.
"We had a computer set up with the software," Edens said of the second redistricting community meeting on April 25, at Silver Creek High School. "We gave a demonstration of what we could do. The point of doing that is to be able to make changes in real time and to determine, on the spot, what the implications would be in terms of added population. It just does it one heck of a lot faster and you can see it graphically."
Edens said people who attend the third and final commission community meeting on May 9, at the Willows Senior Center can also expect to see the GIS program in action. By that time, he said, the commission should be getting closer to a final version of the recommended map they must submit to the city council by May 30.
"There'll be something more concrete," Edens said. "The commission will be close to a real alternate. There'll be more for people to react to, to comment and ask questions about."
Edens said 2000 Census data was downloaded into the computer program and "tinkered" slightly to work with the software and the city's maps of San Jose. The maps, supplied with the population and ethnic distribution data, can then be manipulated, and the software will immediately calculate new population breakdowns for each change.
"Before, basically we had to use calculators and look at maps and data tables," Edens said. "It was much more time consuming. Now, it calculates faster than we can."
According to the new census data, San Jose's population is about 894,000, which, split evenly among the 10 council districts, makes each about 89,400 people. Edens said most of the city's districts must grow in size to balance out the increased population in the eastern districts--Districts 4, 5 and 8.
Some Willow Glen residents say they hope the neighborhood could be entirely included in District 6. Southern portions of the area were moved into District 9 in the city's 1991 redistricting. The Willow Glen Neighborhood Association board plans to send the commission a letter asking it to respect the neighborhood's boundaries. The board also plans to include a map the association uses to define where Willow Glen begins and ends.
Edens said the commission is taking neighborhood boundaries seriously. But the challenge with Willow Glen, he said, is that it is difficult to be sure just what its boundaries are. And, he said, the commission must also consider other criteria, such as keeping racial and ethnic populations together and adhering to geographic boundaries that already exist.
"Any time you change one council district boundary, you change another," he said. "Any change affects the others. It gets really tricky. You don't want to inadvertently reduce ethnic groups, and you try to follow somewhat logical boundaries. It's a real juggling act. No one can come up with set of boundaries that won't please someone."
As helpful as the computer program is, it cannot solve real human problems or make difficult decisions about where a boundary should be drawn, Eden said. Those are left to people and their discussions, in the hopes that each person will get at least some of what he or she wants.
"The program is a very helpful tool, but it just does what you ask it to do," Edens said. "It is the people that really count here."
The redistricting commission's next community meeting is scheduled for May 9, at 7 p.m. at the Willows Senior Center, 2175 Lincoln Ave. For more information, call 408.277.4424, or visit www.ci.san-jose.ca.us.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
