The three cities, they explained, share such interests as planning, transportation, policing, healthcare, water, education and jobs. And they also offered a more unusual argument.
“Our Tri-Cities is a community of many people: Caucasians, Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, Laotians, Afghanan, and so many people,” Yogi Chugh, the chairman of Fremont’s planning commission, told the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. After boasting that Fremont residents speak scores of languages, he said, “We humbly ask for your consideration in ensuring that you can protect our community of interest.”
The assertion that Fremont is a community because it has embraced its diversity highlights a question the commissioners have debated for months: How do Californians define their communities? Or, as Cynthia Dai, a commissioner from San Francisco, put it more bluntly at one hearing: “The question is: Who do you want to be placed with and who do you absolutely not want to be placed with?”
Read more here: California redistricting panel got earful about draft maps