Howard Shih April 3, 2014 Using Maps to Understand Your Constituents: New York City Council Redistricting

Overview Reveal impact of changes in City Council Districts on representation in the Asian American community in New York City Provide a means of reaching out to Council Members regarding their growing Asian constituents Time permitting, also present some of the findings from our similar briefs on State Assembly and Senate Districts.

Topics covered: Population and growth Asian ethnic group population detail Languages spoken

Challenges City Council districts are built from Census Block data Data on Asian ethnic group populations and languages spoken only available at Census Tract level Presenting population data and old and new district boundaries on a map.

Allocating Census Tract Level Data to Census Blocks We assume that Asian ethnic group populations were distributed the same as Asian populations as a whole across the Census Blocks of any Census Tract. Example: if 20% of Asians in Census Tract A resided in Census Block A.1, then 20% of Chinese in Census Tract A were allocated to Census Block A.1. Census Block A.1 Census Block A.2 District Boundary Census Tract A

Creating the Dataset Languages were allocated using the distribution of total population across Census Blocks within each Census Tract. Once Census Tract data was allocated across the Census Blocks, City Council District data was tabulated based on the definitions provided by the city. Each Census Block was assigned to a single City Council District.

Results

Tabular Data of Populations NYC CouncilBorough Current Council Member Seeking Re- election? 2013 Council District Lines2003 Council District Lines Total populationAsian Percent Asian Total populationAsian Percent Asian 1ManhMargaret ChinYes168,24763,49138%168,96663,83238% 2ManhRosie MendezYes167,83727,41616%161,55426,39816% 3ManhCorey JohnsonNo168,48922,61213%173,25424,25714% 4ManhDaniel R. GarodnickYes168,37021,46313%155,19918,43812% 5ManhBen KallosNo168,32519,70512%161,26918,00011% 6ManhHelen RosenthalNo168,26515,5539%163,68716,24410% 7ManhMark LevineNo167,68212,9108%156,2176,3834% 8Manh Melissa Mark ViveritoYes167,2566,1844%162,73911,0047% 9ManhInez E. DickensYes158,9995,3163%164,42311,4027% 10ManhYdanis RodriguezYes166,2696,1324%136,6473,9313%

Tabular Data of Asian Groups NYC CouncilBangladeshiBhutaneseBurmeseCambodianChineseFilipinoHmongIndianIndonesianJapanese ,5351,17803,659581, ,0801,67414, , ,4811,71924,274912, ,0742,36104,780582, ,6712,06604,420852, ,9091,28602,923162, , ,237341, , , , , , NYC CouncilKoreanLaotianMalaysianNepalesePakistaniSri LankanTaiwaneseThaiVietnamese 12, , , , , , ,

Tabular Data of Languages NYC Council 5 Largest Language Groups Additional Asian Language Groups with more than 1,000 speakers 1 Chinese (47,104) Spanish (14,204) French (2,536) Italian (1,555) Russian (1,453) Korean (1,222) Japanese (1,216) 2 Spanish (25,584) Chinese (10,200) French (2,462) Japanese (1,485) Korean (1,255) Hindi (1,173) Other Indic Languages (1,040) 3 Spanish (16,704) Chinese (4,934) French (4,487) Korean (2,013) Italian (1,969) Japanese (1,733) 4 Spanish (9,228) French (4,522) Chinese (3,677) Japanese (2,270) Korean (1,611) Hindi (1,060) 5Spanish (11,886) Chinese (4,098) French (4,000) Japanese (1,801) Russian (1,688) Korean (1,601) Hindi (1,262)

Comparing Old and New Districts

Difference between City Council and State Legislative District Briefs State legislative districting had been completed in early 2012 in time for the November 2012 election cycle. Hence, emphasis of briefs was on new districts without comparison to old districts.

Outreach Inform the community of the impact of changes due to redistricting. Coverage in local Chinese- and Korean- language press. Resource for language access advocates. Initiate dialogue with key office holders Letters to office holders. Follow-up meetings resulting in additional data requests and maps to help with constituent outreach.

Visualizing Asian Languages