Crazy boundaries

The border looked odd.

The boundary line of the reapportioned legislative district in 1972 veered off an arterial street and zigzagged through a residential area. But I couldn’t figure out why.

No important people lived there. And the voting history of the area seemed irrelevant. A political motive was not apparent. It’s possible the unusual border had simply been the result of an innocent effort to achieve the necessary population, but I didn’t think so.

There had to have been another explanation.

Well, there was. It seems the district encompassed a census tract that had been created before the area was fully developed. It followed a main street until that road dead-ended and then it crawled along the place where side streets would soon be placed. It bordered a giant clay pit and included a tract of land owned by the gas company. Nobody lived there.

Perhaps, it was felt at the time that location of the census line didn’t really matter since the area was vacant. A few homes and a little park were built nearby in the 1920s but most of the area was not developed until the 1950s. Several high-rises were constructed on the site of the clay pit in the late 60s and early 70s and a giant gas company storage tank was demolished soon after.

The dead end street was extended around that time. By 1972, there no longer appeared to be a reason for the odd boundary.

This didn’t seem to be a case of gerrymandering. Legislative mapmakers simply followed the unusual census tract boundaries that had been drawn before the area had been urbanized.

Nobody did anything wrong.