Baltimore City has 14 city council districts, each represented by one council person. The city’s charter requires the districts to be re-evaluated, in a process called redistricting, after every census.

Baltimore began that process last month when Mayor Brandon Scott proposed a map that would redraw all of those districts to have around 42,000 people each — evening out a city that has been losing population, especially in some of its predominantly Black neighborhoods, over the last decade. “The proposed map will rebalance our City Council Districts to ensure equal representation for city residents,” said Mayor Scott in a statement introducing the map on September 18th. 

But in doing so, some neighborhoods with civically active community associations and strong relationships to their current council districts are finding themselves moved elsewhere or split in two. The city council is currently weighing whether they will add their own amendments to the map, especially after holding two town halls to get community feedback. By charter, a map must be passed regardless by November 17th or the mayor’s version becomes law.

Districts One and 11, which include Fell’s Point and Federal Hill respectively, bucked the population decline trend and grew exponentially since the 2010 census; each has about 52,000 people and so the mayor’s map compensates by putting some of that population into neighboring districts.

Bolton Hill, currently represented by Councilmember Eric Costello of District 11, is one neighborhood that would be split in two councilmanic areas. At an October meeting of the Bolton Hill Community Association, board member Jim Prost worried that would be an issue. “We’ve been working so hard to unify the neighborhood. We don't want a LoBo and NoBo,” he said. Bolton Hill, like many Baltimore neighborhoods, has a strong neighborhood association that works to advocate for things like traffic calming on the busy streets of Lafayette and Mount Royal. Prost said that in its current state, the neighborhood has the ability to advocate for itself.

“That kind of reduces our leverage, reduces our power, reduces the relationships,” he said of the mayor’s proposal which divides the community in half at McMechen Street. 

Bolton Hill is far from unique — several neighborhoods including Morrell Park, Old Goucher, and Hoe’s Heights find themselves in a similar situation with the proposal.

District Seven Councilmember James Torrence, who would pick up north Bolton Hill, told those residents during their community meeting that a lot of neighborhoods in his district are already split between two council districts.

A lot of District Seven neighborhoods are currently split with 14, represented by Councilmember Odette Ramos. Torrence says the two council people work together and he encouraged neighborhoods to see that situation as giving them almost double representation.

“Most of the time, my conversation with neighbors is that we're tag-team. So you tag both of us, one of us will tag in and keep the other person updated on it,” said Torrence, going on to add that his staff even has weekly meetings with Ramos’s staff to address issues along district borders.

Residents don’t always see things working out that way. Highlandtown is one neighborhood that is already represented by two council members. The Conkling Street Garden sits just over the division inside of District two, currently represented by Councilmember Danielle McCray. The 30 garden beds are owned by Highlandtown residents from Districts One and Two.

Erin Kirley, who lives in District One, represented by Councilmember Zeke Cohen, and helps run the community garden, said that hasn’t been the easiest. “I think some representatives are willing to do work that spans the technical dividing line in the neighborhood, others are not so much,” said Kirley, speaking to WYPR by phone. “Issues in neighborhoods span through areas, they don't stop at a dividing line or street.”  

But there are a lot of factors that have to go into redistricting the city. Torrence puts it this way.

“It’s a rubix cube. There are a lot of legal considerations,” said Councilmember Torrence in an interview with WYPR, after the Bolton Hill meeting.

There’s the population requirement. But districts also need to be somewhat contiguous, meaning there can’t be geographical features like rivers or bays between them. The Board of Elections also advises that voting precincts don’t get split up.

Marvin James, who is the mayor’s chief of staff, explained that the city’s planning board also tried to factor in diversity.

“In each district shift that we have done, we've done our best to maintain what was the diversity makeup of those districts now,” he said. 

So in considering boundaries, the city wanted to make sure they weren’t moving entire Latine or Black communities into different districts. Although not required by law, the mayor’s administration also wanted to make sure that each district had an “anchor institution.” For instance, the Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital would be moved from District 10 to Nine to serve as an “anchor” for that community.

But James rejected the idea that the proposed redistricting map splits neighborhoods.

“I want to be very clear about the notion that communities are ‘broken up.’ Communities are not broken up. We are just purely talking about representation,” he said.

And for some communities, the proposal is exciting. Highlandtown could potentially be reunited in one district, district one, for the first time in about twenty years.

Kirley, the gardener, is looking forward to that. “Most of us are working full time on top of the community work that we do. And to be able to streamline our efforts, and have a point person is going to make that so much easier for us as a community.”