With the City Council-led process known as reapportionment ready to begin, the time has come for me to offer my guide to ward mapping.
So we care more about sacred principles when it comes to electing Chicago aldermen than presidents. I can’t justify our system—only try to explain it.
Or we could put 50 aldermen in a back room and let them do their thing.
As practical as it sounds, there are drawbacks to having computers blindly redraw the wards. For one, it cuts out the aldermen from having a say. Which is not really a problem to anyone other than the aldermen. But still.
As a result, Chicago has had about 20 Black aldermen—though how that’s helped any Chicagoan, Black or white, over the last 30 years is hard to say.
It’s never really been true when it comes to Black residents, who have always been far more tolerant and open-minded than their white counterparts.
