THE CITY Launches “Have I Been Redistricted?” Interactive. Readers Can Search How Political Boundaries Shifted In Their Communities

Redistricting lookup and maps are the latest in a series of tools created by the nonprofit newsroom to provide New Yorkers with useable resources and guides

NEW YORK, NY (May 23, 2022) – THE CITY, an independent, digital news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York, launched a new tool on Saturday that tracks congressional and state seat changes throughout the city, ahead of this summer’s primary elections. 

To use Have I Been Redistricted? readers enter their address in a search field; the tool will then return location-specific results for congressional, state Senate and Assembly districts. Maps for each district will allow New Yorkers to explore how district boundaries have changed — and how much their old district looks like their new one. Users are also able to filter results by selecting a specific district.

In New York, the districts for Congress and the State Senate were created by a court-appointed special master in mid-May after a protracted legal fight. Assembly lines were changed, too,  by the Democrat-controlled state legislature earlier this year.

The redistricting tracker is the latest in a series of tracking tools THE CITY has developed over the last year. 

In March 2021, THE CITY launched Meet Your Mayor, an interactive guide that matched New York voters with the candidates who see the issues the same way they do.

Readers answered a few short multiple-choice questions on some of the most pressing matters facing the city — from COVID recovery to public school admissions to NYPD discipline and much more. The candidates answered the same queries, via questionnaires THE CITY distributed to the campaigns. 

Users were instantly able to see how the candidates stacked up, issue by issue — along with excerpts from their public comments. 

The tool has since been replicated by LAist, a Los Angeles-based newsroom part of Southern California Public Radio for their upcoming mayoral race.

THE CITY also developed “Coronavirus in New York City,” a tool that tracks COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and vaccinations in the city, with data parsed out by borough. The tracker also boasts an interactive map that shows the number of test-diagnosed cases by ZIP code over the past seven days.

In the early months of the pandemic, THE CITY found that publicized deaths of those who died of COVID-19 skew male and younger and disproportionately come from wealthier enclaves of the city.  

In response, THE CITY created MISSING THEM, a database featuring the stories of loved ones lost to COVID-19. While about 70% of published obituaries in local media are for white New Yorkers, MISSING THEM’s community submissions, fueled by our engagement efforts, more closely mirror the city’s reality when it comes to COVID-19 deaths.

For more on redistricting and THE CITY’s tools, visit www.thecity.nyc