New York’s hasty redistricting rewrite draws ire of locals
New Yorkers pride themselves on the dynamism of their metropolis, where it can feel totally different on the next block, where tourists walking in Chinatown quickly find themselves in Little Italy, where a neighborhood can be a proxy for a lifestyle or worldview.
Figuring out the city’s complexities is tough even for locals — and complaints are pouring in claiming that the two outsiders redrawing New York’s congressional districts have bungled the job by linking and slicing communities they don’t understand.
The retooling of the state’s political district maps was taken over this spring by a rural judge seated about five hours by car from New York City after a court sided with Republicans and ruled Democrats controlling the Legislature had engaged in illegal gerrymandering.