The Studio City Patch reports that "The founding L.A. chapter of the nation's preeminent gay GOP group, the Log Cabin Republicans, is pushing for the City Council's Redistricting Commission to create a council district that would cover Silver Lake to West Hollywood to Studio City--areas that historically have had a higher concentration of gay residents." (West Hollywood isn't in the city of LA, but it sounds like the LCRs want a district that starts at its borders.) The Redistricting Commission is currently working on new City Council district boundaries, as it does every 10 years--the goal is to create 15 districts of equal population (this year the target is 252,841), which can lead to some crazy gerrymandering.
In the latest border battle, Koreatown has requested unification within one district (it's currently split between four) and Valleyites have asked to have their own districts that're contained on their side of the mountains. But you don't usually hear a group asking for an elaborate gerrymander, and in service of a demographic group rather than a geographic one. A Log Cabin spokesperson tells the Patch that "Creating a gay district would help make sure gay interests are represented."
While there's no census data on where gay people live generally, there is data on same sex domestic couples, which we mapped out last year. The story holds up--Silver Lake and West Hollywood did have the highest concentrations of cohabitating gay couples in 2010; Studio City also had a fairly high rate.
· Local GOP Group Calls for Creation of Gay City Council District to Include Studio City [SC Patch]
· 5 of LA's Craziest City Council District Gerrymanders [Curbed LA]
· Census Data Map Shows the Gayborhoods of Los Angeles [Curbed LA]
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