Could Georgetown Join Ward Three?

It’s census time again. As GM prepared his ten answers, he started to wonder, could this census lead to Georgetown shifting over to Ward Three?

Most people are familiar with the Congressional redistricting that occurs as a result of the decennial census, but the District redistricts itself as well. To ensure that all eight wards are roughly the same population, the District redraws the maps every ten years.

Generally, when a ward grows in population it will shrink in size come redistricting time. Ten years ago, Ward Two did just that:

The 2000 census found that Ward Two had about 82,000 residents. The average per ward total in 2000 was about 71,000. So Ward Two had to lose about 11,000 residents to slim down to size. The map above shows where Ward Two gave up land (shown in red) and where it gained land (shown in green). As you can see, Ward Two gave up the entire residential portion of Southwest DC, a significant chunk of downtown, and the easternmost quarter of the Palisades. It gained Kalorama and a handful of blocks in north Dupont/U St.

As a result of these changes, Ward Two lost about 20,000 residents and picked up about 5,000 new residents, leaving a total of about 68,000 (below the average but within an acceptable range).

By the time the census cards finish rolling in this year, the District is expected to have grown by about 30,000 people since 2000. A lot of those new residents moved into Ward Two, particularly the eastern edge of Ward Two.

Could that mean Georgetown would have to shift over to Ward Three (which is unlikely to grow as much as Wards One, Two or Six)? It’s impossible to know right now. About the only ward-by-ward population measure that GM can find are the voting records, and that’s not a reliable way to measure how the population has changed year-to-year.

While it’s too early to say with confidence what will happen, it’s worthwhile to consider what could happen. The District tends to shift whole census tracts (of the changes, only a handful split census tracts). Georgetown is made up of three census tracts: 1, 2.1, and 2.2. Census tract 1 is all of Georgetown east of Wisconsin, census tract 2.1 is Georgetown University, and census tract 2.2 is the rest.

It seems highly unlikely that all of Georgetown would shift over. First of all, it’s a lot of people. Second, Jack Evans lives in Georgetown and he’s not likely going to redistrict himself out of a job. But he may not be opposed to giving up GU or perhaps Burleith.

So chances are that you’ll stay in Ward Two. But stranger things have happened. For instance, if Vincent Gray runs for mayor, he’ll have to give up his position as Council Chair, a position in which Evans has expressed an interest in the past. If Evans wins the Chair, his spot will open up and could be won by a non-Georgetowner. Such person might be perfectly happy not to have to listen to us for the next ten years (although they’d be giving up our political donations too).

Either way, it’ll be an interesting discussion.