Blog: June 2005

Unlike with city boundaries which are clearly defined, there's no definitive source for neighborhood boundaries, and actually there's really no unofficial source either. Individual cities' Web sites, and travel books, make some attempt, but they all disagree. I solved this at Tellme by just buying a bunch of books and picking out a center for each neighborhood as best I could, then finding restaurants by proximity to that point.

The Neighborhood Project uses Craigslist data to map neighborhoods based on what their residents call each area. They have it for San Francisco only right now, but it's fascinating. (My one complaint about the site is that the "my browser sucks" link should really be "my browser sucks, or else I have a big enough screen that I can look at the whole map and don't need your fancy magnification widget thingie".)

Some neighborhoods are clearly defined, while in other areas nobody seems to agree on what to call them (what's the area around Dolores Park? I've always wondered myself). Using housing listings is of course biased; nobody says they are in the Tenderloin. And some neighborhoods, like possibly Hayes Valley, are significantly larger than they "should" be because people want to claim they are in that neighborhood (are those really Noe Valley dots north of Market?)

It would be really interesting to see this map for NYC, and also to track it longitudinally over time. Some neighborhoods get larger as people want to claim they are in that neighborhood, but then sometimes people rebel against being swallowed up by an area and embrace a gritty name associated with a neighborhood's former character (like "Hell's Kitchen").

I honestly don't know what I think about this. On the one hand, the Council recently has been an ineffective check on the power of the Mayor, and longer serving members would have the ability to build up the connections and influence to do so. And there are some great people on the Council (like Brewer) who deserve to have their jobs for more than eight years.

On the other hand, the voters did pass this law, and it's unfair for an elected body to thwart their will without an actual repeal by referendum. Plus, we're seeing a lot of action from elected officials all of a sudden, from people like Gifford Miller, who's running for Mayor, and David Yassky, who after doing very little during the two years I lived in his district is now reportedly leading a faction to broker a deal on the trash disposal conflict, at the same time as he gears up to run for Congress.

What to do? I don't know, which is why Cosmopolity is planning to arrange a debate on this subject. But might there be some more creative solutions to this problem than just extending terms, solutions which allow voters to keep people they like while also empowering new faces to join the Council without having to overcome the huge advantage of incumbency?

For example, what if after two terms, a Councilperson had to receive 55% of the vote, not 50%, in order to win reelection? And then 60% for a fourth term? That way if the people of the Upper West Side really love Gale Brewer, they can keep her as their representative, but at the same time she can't simply rest on a constant power base. And if the incumbent doesn't achieve the requisite vote total, then there could be another later election in which the incumbent is forbidden to run. There are drawbacks to this, such as the high cost of running additional elections, and making sure there is enough time for new candidates to mount a campaign for the suddenly-vacant seat.

Or, perhaps we could force each Councilperson to gather a large number of signatures on a petition in advance of the election in order to be allowed to run despite term limits. With about 160,000 people per council district, perhaps running for a third term would require 10,000 signatures, a fourth term 15,000, and gradually increasing from there. This scheme has the danger that it would further strengthen political machines, who could help their candidates achieve the petition totals.

These two ideas might be great or terrible, and certainly each has some challenges that would need to be solved. But ultimately, might there be a similar way to gradually handicap candidates, so that they can continue to run beyond the current term limitations, but at the same time requiring more from them in each election?

Take a look and let me know what you think.