Green Acres: An Example Of How Redistricting Maps Move A Self Contained Neighborhood Around [Updated]]

[I've been working on this post a few days now and it still doesn't feel right, but I think I just need to put it up and move on.]

 [UPDATE Oct 12, 2021: The key change is that Rep. Spohnholz, not Rep.Tarr would be the Doyon map.  But I did some grammatical fixes while I was at it.]

Green Acres is a little self contained neighborhood southwest of UAA.  A black business woman homesteaded the area in the 50s, according to a neighbor who had been here from early on.  She then sold parcels to other black families who had trouble buying in other parts of Anchorage.  That probably also accounts for why no streets go through to any of the adjoining neighborhoods.  There are only three outlets - one to 36th and two to Lake Otis.  When it was homesteaded 36th didn't go through to Lake Otis.  When we moved into the neighborhood in the late 1970s, both 36th and Lake Otis were still two lane roads.  As the original owners passed away, and it got easier for blacks to live in other neighborhoods, the neighborhood changed, but it still has some of the original families as well as a diverse population.  It's a mix of single family homes, duplexes, triplexes, and four-plexes.

I've outlined Green Acres  in red (sorry, but red shows up much better than green).  You can see it's on the south west corner of Lake Otis and 36th.  None of the streets connect to the pricier neighborhoods to the west or south.  Only three streets exit Green Acres:  Randolph onto 36th, and 37th and 38th onto Lake Otis.  Across Lake Otis is some UAA land, and medical offices, then McLaughlin Youth Center.  South along Lake Otis is medical offices.  North is 36th and there is no entrance to the neighborhoods there until you go much further west to Vassar.   So Green Acres is a pretty self-contained neighborhood.  

Why am I telling you all this?   

At the Anchorage Redistricting Board map show-and-tell and public testimony a week ago Friday, I was looking at an AFFR map on the wall and saw that a section of Green Acres had been split off from the rest of the neighborhood.  I couldn't tell from the size of the map at the time, but it was close to 1/2 of Green Acres put into a district that had no real adjoining residential section.  So neighbors in the small community would be split into two different house districts and senate districts.  I talked to one of the AFFR mappers that night and followed up with an email with more details.  [By the way, I'm calling AFFR's district 15-H "the flying pig" though I'd accept "the flying bear" as well.]

So this exercise led me to write a  blog post about how to make some sense of all the maps. (I think it's a useful post for Alaskans, and maybe others in other states.)  There's way too much information for people to check all the districts in all the maps.  

So I recommended that people just find their own house on the six maps plus their current district and compare them.  As a way to get a better sense of what the different mappers did to their neighborhood, district, and representative and senator.

That's what I then set out to do for my neighborhood.  .  And you can too.  Here's the link to the map page on the Redistricting Board site.   There are six plans:

• Board v3 (version 3)
• Board v4
• AFFER (Alaskans for Fair and Equitable Redistricting) - the GOP group
• AFFR (Alaskans for Fair Redistricting) - unions and native organizations and others
• DOYON Coalition - A group of Native organizations
• Senate Minority - Democrats in the State Senate

Under each plan you have a choice of different kinds of formats.  I recommend to start off with the top one - the interactive map - so you can zoom in and out as you please.  

Near the bottom on the left are the 2013 Proclamation Maps where you can get a map of your current district.  

So here are my maps and things I learned.  

My Current District  [Note:  I drew a green outline around Green Acres, but on these maps it's hard to see, so I added the big green star.  Green Acres is at the 5 o'clock point of the star in all the maps. You should also be able to see UAA kitty-corner on the north-east side of Lake Otis and 36th.  These maps are all higher resolution than normal, so you can click them to make them bigger and sharper.]

So, now my neighborhood is in the north-west corner of my district (though the north-east corner goes further north).  UAA is in my district which goes south to Dowling and east to Elmore and along the edge of the UAA/APU parklands.  More or less.  It's not that clean.  Or in redistricting language, compact, meaning it's not a perfect square.  But it is compact in the sense that a person (like a candidate trying to go door to door) could walk from the southwest corner to the northeast corner easily.  Google maps sets a walking distance of 4.6 miles and a time of 1 hour and 31 minutes.

Board's V3 - District 16

We change from a generally squarish district with a north-south orientation, to a long rectangle.  Maybe a truck shape.  Green Acres moves from the north-west corner closer to the south-east corner.  We go from Piper/University Drive on the east (cutting UAA in half) all the way west past Wisconsin to Aero, almost in Earthquake Park.  North is along Northern Lights and the south boundary is basically Tudor.  Google maps say it's 5.3 miles from the SE corner to the NW corner by foot.  You could walk it, they say, in 1 hour 53 minutes.   I'd also note, after looking at Alaska Landmine's maps with state representatives homes marked, that this district has NO incumbents living it it.  It is hard for me to imagine how that can happen by accident.  My current representative lives south of Tudor which is across the border.  

Board's V4 - District 13

This map also moves me from the NW corner to the East of my district.  In other words it moves my district west and north.  And makes it an east-west rectangle not a north-south one.  But it seems more compact than V3.  It goes from Lake Otis and Northern Lights in the NE to Northwood and International Airport Road.  Google says you can walk 3.4 miles from the NE to the SW  in 1 hour and 7 minutes. While it follows squiggly Fish Creek along the east, it uses Tudor and International Airport Road as a southern border.   Again, it looks like v4, like v3, does a good job of carving out by five or six blocks my current representative Josephson and puts him in a district with another Democrat, Chris Tuck.  And from what I can tell, leaves District 13 with no incumbents.  

AFFER - District 24

There's a pattern here.  The two Board maps and the AFFER map all move my district north of Tudor which conveniently removes my current representative from my district and, apparently into the same district as Rep. Chris Tuck.  And then moves the district to the west so my neighborhood moves from the west end of the district to the east end. 

This map also changes the orientation from the old north-south to an east-west.  This map uses Chester Creek as a northern boundary and a very straight Tudor Road as a southern boundary.  The east looks like a fish with its mouth open but is largely Lake Otis from Tudor to Northern Lights.  

 This map does appear to have one incumbent in it - Harriet Drummond.

Google says 4.8 miles 1 hour 34 minutes from Folker and Tudor in the SE to the Westchester Lagoon Overlook in the NW.  

AFFR   - District 15 H

Like the others, it shifts my district east-west.  Well, I can't say that really, because this is the one I started with that pulls me and some of my neighbors out of our little self contained neighborhood and puts us in an isolated group not physically connected to any other residential neighborhood.  And as I write this I realize I've been in denial with this map, because I'm no longer with my Green Acres neighborhood and this flying pig shaped district.  This district does include my old representative Andy Josephson, but not me.  

From southeast toe to the northwest ear tip Google tells us is 5.4 miles or one hour 45 minutes walk.

While this started with my house, this quickly became about Green Acres, and in the AFFR maps, Green Acres is in two different districts.  So let's look at the other AFFR district where the other half of Green Acres goes.  

AFFR - District 18-I   

Another east-west orientation.  Part of Green Acres is now on a south border, in the middle between east and west.  It appears that Rep. Geran Tarr lives in this district.  Some of this area was well within my old district.  

Google says from the NE corner at Boniface and Debarr to the SE corner at Arctic and 36th is 5.1 miles, or a one hour and 39 minute walk.  

DOYON Coalition - District 17-I

Another east-west orientation.  On the east Boniface Parkway from just north of Northern Lights to just south of Tudor.  Then it uses Tudor for a southern border to the Seward Highway. Turns north along Seward Highway to 36 the west again to Arctic.  Arctic is the east boundary.  The northern boundary starting east at Boniface, goes along Reka Dr to Bragaw. Then it takes 20th to Rosemary, the Cassius to Thunderbird to 18th Circle.  Then I'm not sure what line it's following to get up to 16th and eventually gets up to Debarr.  From what I can tell, it splits up Airport Heights.  Then it gets over to Chester Creek and follows it to Valley of the Moon.  

Google says it's 5.2 miles one hour 39 minutes  from Boniface and 40th on the southeast corner of the district to Valley of the Moon Park on the northwest corner.  

I think that Geran Tarr  [@alaskanrobby says it's Ivy Spohnholz] is in this district, but on the Landmine map it's hard to tell exactly since the Doyon maps wanders in and out of the Airport Heights neighborhood.  I don't think any other representatives are in the district.  

Senate Minority Coalition - District 20-J

This map is the only one that keeps the district basically vertical.  But It takes the district south, keeps it narrow.  It's the only one of the maps that keeps my neighborhood in Rep.Josephson's district.  The Flying Pig district from AFFR does too, but my house was cut out of that district.

It basically starts at Northern Lights between Old Seward to Lake Otis and takes that narrow swath south.  At Dowling it protrudes to the east and stops at Lore in the south.  

Google says 4.8 miles or one hour and 36 minutes to walk from Elmore and Lore in the SE to Northern Lights and Seward Highway on the NW.

Observations and Conclusions

First a table pulling out some factors I could use for comparison.  There are two AFFR maps.  AFFR1 map is the the western half of Green Acres.  AFFR2 is the eastern half of Green Acres.

	Board v3	Board v4	AFFER	AFFR1	AFFR2	DOYON	SENATE Minority
District	16	13	24-L	15-H	18-I	17-I	20-J
Walking Distance	5.3 mi	3.4 mi	5.2 mi	5.4 mi	5.1 mi	5.2	4.7
Incumbent	none	none	Drummond	Josephson	Tarr	Tarr [Spohnholz]	Josephson
Deviation	-74/0.41%	-330/1.8%	+128/.70%	-20/0.11%	+4/0.02%	-141/-0.77	+5/+0.03

1.  All four of the independent map makers were able to identify Senate pairings, but the Redistricting Board did not.  The board's attorney Matt Singer said they were required to do the house districts but not the Senate pairings.  Here's what the Alaska Constitution says:

§ 10. Redistricting Plan and Proclamation

(a) Within thirty days after the official reporting of the decennial census of the United States or thirty days after being duly appointed, whichever occurs last, the board shall adopt one or more proposed redistricting plans. The board shall hold public hearings on the proposed plan, or, if no single proposed plan is agreed on, on all plans proposed by the board. No later than ninety days after the board has been appointed and the official reporting of the decennial census of the United States, the board shall adopt a final redistricting plan and issue a proclamation of redistricting. The final plan shall set out boundaries of house and senate districts and shall be effective for the election of members of the legislature until after the official reporting of the next decennial census of the United States. [emphasis added]

While the Constitution doesn't say the first proposed plan has to have senate districts, neither does it say it has to have house districts.  Only for the final plan does it say either house or senate, so I'm not sure why the Board's attorney thought that senate pairings in the original proposed plans were any less important than the house seats in the final plan.  All the 3rd party plans managed to include Senate pairings.  

I suspect that 'setting out boundaries' means 'metes and bounds' - a process the staff does at the end which is to describe the physical boundaries of the districts.  I've done a very abbreviated version of that in my descriptions.  Here's a post on Metes and Bounds I did in 2011 redistricting process.

2.  Most of the maps changed my current district from a north-south orientation to an east-west orientation.  

3.  The most distant points of each of the districts are all within 2 miles - 5.4 being the highest and 3.4 being the lowest.  Those points for each district should be walkable in 2 hours or less according to Google maps.  So there's really no problem with compactness.  The largest state districts are hundreds of miles of roadless wilderness.  Google maps couldn't tell me distances, for example, from Kaktovik to Point Hope.  Expedia says it's 922 km which is 572 miles, presumably by air.  

4.  While the Board adopted a policy at the beginning, to not protect incumbents, they have not made a policy to not target incumbents.  The Board's v3 and v4 maps both pair a number of incumbents and leave my district, for example, without an incumbent.  It's hard for me to believe that didn't happen intentionally.  I recently read an article - which I can't relocate - that said the first maps, no matter how much they are later adjusted, set the pattern.  The Board's v1 map of Anchorage put a number of Democratic incumbents into one district.  It also made the maps in an east-west orientation instead of a north-west orientation.  The second map, v2 was done quickly by another board member, but it's hard to adjust from that first orientation.  The current Board maps are modifications of v1 and v2.  We still have incumbents put together in the same districts.  It seems Democrats and moderate Republicans more than hard-line far right Republicans.  @Alaskanrobby has made maps showing those groupings.  

As you can probably tell, I'm still trying to make sense of all of this, I know more than I did when I started this post and the review of the maps.  I also have a lot more questions. 

If you try this, it should be easier, because you don't have to then write a post about it.  But the writing exercise does force one to clarify things.  Good luck.