Opinion ID: 75887
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Communities of Interest

Text: 44 The district court also concluded that the plan elevated communities of interest over race in the redistricting process. It offered this explanation for District 3's pie slice which pulls population out of District 2 and places them into District 3. The district court approved the inclusion of the pie slice in District 3 because it is characterized by fine, old houses and populated by a predominately affluent population, in contrast to the humbler conditions in the urban areas of District Two. The court concluded that, without the pie slice, there would have been an unnatural division of this distinct community of interest. Even if assignment of voters on the basis of socio-economic status is a legitimate, traditional districting principle, which appears unlikely, nothing in the record suggests that this was the reason for carving the pie slice out of District 2. On the other hand, the census tracts make clear that the population in the pie slice was largely white and would have done damage to Ms. Meggers' numbers.