Keep Mt Airy together, rep to POC, =rep for citie
I’ve lived in Mt Airy for over 40 years. I choose this neighborhood for its proximity to the Wissahickon park, its racial diversity and community-minded spirit. I understand the commission has a hard task. I understand some of the ways the commission tries to fix the problems of previously gerrymandered maps is to look at the natural boundaries and borders, and look at where a neighborhood has its natural bounderies. So I do understand why you might choose to change a boundary from being on both sides of the Schuylkill River to just one side. But I don’t understand why you would merge Mt Airy with another distinct community on the other side of the Wissahickon creek. Roxborough and Mt Airy are two very distinct neighboring communities separated by the natural boundary of the Wissahickon. Legislative districts are a chance to get very local representation. While Roxborough is a lovely community, it doesn’t share the same schools, community centers, playgrounds, shopping districts, etc. I am also particularly concerned that this redistricting proposal, should it go through would change our district from a majority African American district to a majority white district, possibly further eroding representation of African Americans in the Commonwealth. Please keep Mt Airy together. I would hope Chestnut Hill would stay with us also as it is closely aligned with Mt Airy. Philadelphia is a city of neighborhoods, please keep this in mind in your difficult task of re-drawing boundaries. Also regarding the Senate maps, my understanding is that both the urban and suburban areas are growing in Southeast PA, while rural areas have lost population. Yet the preliminary map does not reflect that. The US has baked in many things that give cities less representation than rural voters…ie 2 US senators for every state no matter how many people live there etc. To a degree this also exists in our state senate. I would ask that this map not give less representation to our more populous areas. We deserve better. We deserve as much representation as our rural citizens. Also, we need to give Phila’s growing and under represented Latino communities some fair representation, by not splitting their communities. They deserve at least one Hispanic majority district in North Phila. Again, legislative districts should maintain neighborhood cohesiveness. Thank you for your consideration.