Created and managed by the Department of Local Affairs (DOLA) at the State of Colorado, this data shows all the local municipalities within the state. Attribution includes information regarding the municipality name, description, order number, etc.For more information on municipalities in the State of Colorado, visit the DOLA website here.

Background Despite the infrequency of storms, the City of Colorado Springs Streets Division must be prepared for minor and major snowstorms from September through May. The City's Streets Division is responsible for approximately 6,480 lane miles of roadway, extending over a 202 square mile area. While average annual snowfall stands at 42 inches, snow can pile up quickly, at varying rates throughout the City. Elevation and wind can compound accumulation, causing an immediate impact on the City's mobility. Hence, the need for safe and passable streets is a priority for the Streets Division.Route TypePrimary Routes, which are multi-lane roads with large volumes of traffic or hospital access, are treated first. Once the primary routes are passable, snow crews move on to Secondary Routes, which includes school access and collector streets that serve as the main connections between neighborhoods and primary roads. If there is continuous snowfall, the Primary Routes may have to be plowed more than once, which will delay the response on secondary streets.Street Treatments The City uses three materials on City streets. The first material is called "anti-skid" and is used on most snow routes. Anti-skid can contain up to 20 percent salt, and is used to aid in vehicle traction. The second material is used on many of the City's thoroughfares and is called "IceSlicer." This material is a de-icer and will lower the freezing temperature of water. IceSlicer will work down to around 10 degrees. The third material is “APEX” and is a liquid. It is applied to the roadway before a storm or right as snow begins to fall. It is intended to help stop the bond of snow/ice to the roadway and aids in clean-up after the storms conclusion.For more information about the City of Colorado Springs Street Division, please click hereState and County Roads All State and County roads are maintained by their own staff. For information on snow removal on State or County roads, call: CDOT winter road conditions, (303) 639-1111 CDOT road maintenance office (Colorado Springs), (719) 634-2323 or (719) 576-1868 El Paso County Department of Transportation office, (719) 520-6460 Contact information City of Colorado Springs Streets Division, (719) 385-5934 24-Hour Answering Service, (719) 278-8352 Streets Division automated snow hotline, (719) 385-SNOW National Weather Service Forecast information for Colorado Springs, (303) 573-6846 What to Know for Snow City information - WinterStormsFor more information please check out the Snow Plow Information site HERE

This is a comment on the preliminary Congressional Commission redistricting map. Along with providing feedback on that map, it offers a draft alternative that better meets the criteria of the Colorado Constitution. As background, I participated in redistricting initiatives in South Bend, Indiana, in the mid-1980s and for Indiana legislative seats after the 1990 census. I didn’t engage with redistricting during the rest of my 20-year military career. After retiring, and while serving as Public Trustee for El Paso County, I participated in redistricting efforts at the county and city level. I also stood for El Paso County Clerk in 2010. I have lived in Colorado since 2000. The draft alternative map is created using Dave’s Redistricting App (DRA) and can be found at https://davesredistricting.org/join/346f297c-71d1-4443-9110-b92e3362b105. I used DRA because it was more user-friendly in that it allows selection by precinct and by city or town, while the tool provided by the commission seems to allow only selection by census block (or larger clusters). The two tools also use slightly different population estimates, but this will be resolved when the 2020 data are released in August. These comments acknowledge that any map created using estimated populations will need to change to account for the actual census data.

Description of Draft Alternative

    My process started by

identifying large-scale geographic communities of interest within Colorado: the Western Slope/mountain areas, the Eastern Plains, Colorado Springs/El Paso County, the North Front Range, and Denver Metro. Two smaller geographic communities of interest are Pueblo and the San Luis Valley—neither is nearly large enough to sustain a district and both are somewhat distinct from their neighboring communities of interest. A choice thus must be made about which other communities of interest to group them with. El Paso County is within 0.3% of the optimal population, so it is set as District 5. The true Western Slope is not large enough to sustain a district, even with the obvious addition of Jackson County. Rather than including the San Luis Valley with the Western Slope, the preliminary commission map extends the Western Slope district to include all of Fremont County (even Canon City, Florence, and Penrose), Clear Creek County, and some of northern Boulder County. The draft alternative District 3 instead adds the San Luis Valley, the Upper Arkansas Valley (Lake and Chaffee Counties, and the western part of Fremont County), Park and Teller Counties, and Custer County. The draft alternative District 4 is based on the Eastern Plains. In the south, this includes the rest of Fremont County (including Canon City), Pueblo, and the Lower Arkansas Valley. In the north, this includes all of Weld County, retaining it as an intact political subdivision. This is nearly enough population to form a complete district; it is rounded out by including the easternmost portions of Adams and Arapahoe Counties. All of Elbert County is in this district; none of Douglas County is. The draft alternative District 2 is placed in the North Front Range and includes Larimer, Boulder, Gilpin, and Clear Creek Counties. This is nearly enough population to form a complete district, so it is rounded out by adding Evergreen and the rest of Coal Creek in Jefferson County. The City and County of Denver (and the Arapahoe County enclave municipalities of Glendale and Holly Hills) forms the basis of draft alternative District 1. This is a bit too large to form a district, so small areas are shaved off into neighboring districts: DIA (mostly for compactness), Indian Creek, and part of Marston. This leaves three districts to place in suburban Denver. The draft alternative keeps Douglas County intact, as well as the city of Aurora, except for the part that extends into Douglas County. The map prioritizes the county over the city as a political subdivision. Draft alternative District 6, anchored in Douglas County, extends north into Arapahoe County to include suburbs like Centennial, Littleton, Englewood, Greenwood Village, and Cherry Hills Village. This is not enough population, so the district extends west into southern Jefferson County to include Columbine, Ken Caryl, and Dakota Ridge. The northwestern edge of this district would run along Deer Creek Road, Pleasant Park Road, and Kennedy Gulch Road. Draft alternative District 8, anchored in Aurora, includes the rest of western Arapahoe County and extends north into Adams County to include Commerce City, Brighton (except the part in Weld County), Thornton, and North Washington. In the draft alternative, this district includes a sliver of Northglenn east of Stonehocker Park. While this likely would be resolved when final population totals are released, this division of Northglenn is the most notable division of a city within a single county other than the required division of Denver. Draft alternative District 7 encompasses what is left: The City and County of Broomfield; Westminster, in both Jefferson and Adams Counties; Federal Heights, Sherrelwood, Welby, Twin Lakes, Berkley, and almost all of Northglenn in western Adams County; and Lakewood, Arvada, Golden, Wheat Ridge, Morrison, Indian Hills, Aspen Park, Genesee, and Kittredge in northern Jefferson County. The border with District 2 through the communities in the western portion of Jefferson County would likely be adjusted after final population totals are released.

Comparison of Maps

Precise Population Equality
    The preliminary commission

map has exact population equality. The draft alternative map has a variation of 0.6% (4,239 persons). Given that the maps are based on population estimates, and that I left it at the precinct and municipality level, this aspect of the preliminary map is premature to pinpoint. Once final population data are released, either map would need to be adjusted. It would be simple to tweak district boundaries to achieve any desired level of equality. That said, such precision is a bit of a fallacy: errors in the census data likely exceed the 0.6% in the draft map, the census data will be a year out of date when received, and relative district populations will fluctuate over the next 10 years. Both the “good-faith effort†and “as practicable†language leave room for a bit of variance in service of other goals. The need to “justify any variance†does not mean “no variance will be allowed.†For example, it may be better to maintain unity in a community of interest or political subdivision rather than separate part of it for additional precision. The major sticking point here is likely to be El Paso County: given how close it seems to be to the optimal district size, will it be worth it to divide the county or one of its neighbors to achieve precision? The same question would be likely to apply among the municipalities in Metro Denver.

Contiguity
    The draft alternative map

meets this requirement. The preliminary commission map violates the spirit if not the actual language of this requirement. While its districts are connected by land, the only way to travel to all parts of preliminary Districts 3 and 4 without leaving the districts would be on foot. There is no road connection between the parts of Boulder County that are in District 3 and the rest of that district in Grand County without leaving the district and passing through District 2 in either Gilpin or Larimer Counties. There also is no road connection between some of the southwestern portions of Mineral County and the rest of District 4 without passing through Archuleta or Hinsdale Counties in District 3.

Voting Rights Act
    The preliminary staff

analysis assumes it would be possible to create a majority-minority district; they are correct, it can be done via a noncompact district running from the west side of Denver up to Commerce City and Brighton and down to parts of northeastern Denver and northern Aurora. Such a district would go against criteria for compactness, political subdivisions, and even other definitions of communities of interest. Staff asserts that the election of Democratic candidates in this area suffices for VRA. Appendix B is opaque regarding the actual non-White or Hispanic population in each district, but I presume that if they had created a majority-minority district they would have said so. In the draft alternative map, District 8 (Aurora, Commerce City, Brighton, and Thornton) has a 39.6% minority population and District 1 (Denver) has a 34.9% minority population. The proposals are similar in meeting this criterion.

Communities of Interest
    Staff presented a long list

of communities of interest. While keeping all of these intact would be ideal, drawing a map requires compromises based on geography and population. Many communities of interest overlap with each other, especially at their edges. This difficulty points to a reason to focus on existing subdivisions (county, city, and town boundaries): those boundaries are stable and overlap with shared public policy concerns. The preliminary commission map chooses to group the San Luis Valley, as far upstream as Del Norte and Creede, with Pueblo and the Eastern Plains rather than with the Western Slope/Mountains. To balance the population numbers, the preliminary commission map thus had to reach east in northern and central Colorado. The commission includes Canon City and Florence

Fifty-three types of surficial geologic deposits and residual materials of Quaternary age are described in a pamphlet and located on a map of the greater Pueblo area, in part of the Front Range, in the Wet and Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and on the plains east of Colorado Springs and Pueblo. Deposits formed by landslides, wind, and glaciers, as well as colluvium, residuum, alluvium, and others are described in terms of predominant grain size, mineral or rock composition (e.g., gypsiferous, calcareous, granitic, andesitic), thickness, and other physical characteristics. Origins and ages of the deposits and geologic hazards related to them are noted. Many lines drawn between units on our map were placed by generalizing contacts on published maps. However, in 1997-1999 we mapped new boundaries as well. The map was projected to the UTM projection. This large map area extends from near Salida (on the west edge), eastward about 107 mi (172 km), and from Antero Reservoir and Woodland Park on the north edge to near Colorado City at the south edge (68 mi; 109 km).

The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created in the New Deal Era and trained many home appraisers in the 1930s. The HOLC created a neighborhood ranking system infamously known today as redlining. Local real estate developers and appraisers in over 200 cities assigned grades to residential neighborhoods. These maps and neighborhood ratings set the rules for decades of real estate practices. The grades ranged from A to D. A was traditionally colored in green, B was traditionally colored in blue, C was traditionally colored in yellow, and D was traditionally colored in red. A (Best): Always upper- or upper-middle-class White neighborhoods that HOLC defined as posing minimal risk for banks and other mortgage lenders, as they were "ethnically homogeneous" and had room to be further developed.B (Still Desirable): Generally nearly or completely White, U.S. -born neighborhoods that HOLC defined as "still desirable" and sound investments for mortgage lenders.C (Declining): Areas where the residents were often working-class and/or first or second generation immigrants from Europe. These areas often lacked utilities and were characterized by older building stock.D (Hazardous): Areas here often received this grade because they were "infiltrated" with "undesirable populations" such as Jewish, Asian, Mexican, and Black families. These areas were more likely to be close to industrial areas and to have older housing.Banks received federal backing to lend money for mortgages based on these grades. Many banks simply refused to lend to areas with the lowest grade, making it impossible for people in many areas to become homeowners. While this type of neighborhood classification is no longer legal thanks to the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (which was passed in large part due to the activism and work of the NAACP and other groups), the effects of disinvestment due to redlining are still observable today. For example, the health and wealth of neighborhoods in Chicago today can be traced back to redlining (Chicago Tribune). In addition to formerly redlined neighborhoods having fewer resources such as quality schools, access to fresh foods, and health care facilities, new research from the Science Museum of Virginia finds a link between urban heat islands and redlining (Hoffman, et al., 2020). This layer comes out of that work, specifically from University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab. More information on sources and digitization process can be found on the Data and Download and About pages. NOTE: This map has been updated as of 1/16/24 to use a newer version of the data layer which contains more cities than it previously did. As mentioned above, over 200 cities were redlined and therefore this is not a complete dataset of every city that experienced redlining by the HOLC in the 1930s. Map opens in Sacramento, CA. Use bookmarks or the search bar to get to other cities.Cities included in this mapAlabama: Birmingham, Mobile, MontgomeryArizona: PhoenixArkansas: Arkadelphia, Batesville, Camden, Conway, El Dorado, Fort Smith, Little Rock, Russellville, TexarkanaCalifornia: Fresno, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, StocktonColorado: Boulder, Colorado Springs, Denver, Fort Collins, Fort Morgan, Grand Junction, Greeley, Longmont, PuebloConnecticut: Bridgeport and Fairfield; Hartford; New Britain; New Haven; Stamford, Darien, and New Canaan; WaterburyFlorida: Crestview, Daytona Beach, DeFuniak Springs, DeLand, Jacksonville, Miami, New Smyrna, Orlando, Pensacola, St. Petersburg, TampaGeorgia: Atlanta, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, SavannahIowa: Boone, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Davenport, Des Moines, Dubuque, Sioux City, WaterlooIllinois: Aurora, Chicago, Decatur, East St. Louis, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, SpringfieldIndiana: Evansville, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Lake County Gary, Muncie, South Bend, Terre HauteKansas: Atchison, Greater Kansas City, Junction City, Topeka, WichitaKentucky: Covington, Lexington, LouisvilleLouisiana: New Orleans, ShreveportMaine: Augusta, Boothbay, Portland, Sanford, WatervilleMaryland: BaltimoreMassachusetts: Arlington, Belmont, Boston, Braintree, Brockton, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Dedham, Everett, Fall River, Fitchburg, Haverhill, Holyoke Chicopee, Lawrence, Lexington, Lowell, Lynn, Malden, Medford, Melrose, Milton, Needham, New Bedford, Newton, Pittsfield, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Saugus, Somerville, Springfield, Waltham, Watertown, Winchester, Winthrop, WorcesterMichigan: Battle Creek, Bay City, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Muskegon, Pontiac, Saginaw, ToledoMinnesota: Austin, Duluth, Mankato, Minneapolis, Rochester, Staples, St. Cloud, St. PaulMississippi: JacksonMissouri: Cape Girardeau, Carthage, Greater Kansas City, Joplin, Springfield, St. Joseph, St. LouisNorth Carolina: Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Elizabeth City, Fayetteville, Goldsboro, Greensboro, Hendersonville, High Point, New Bern, Rocky Mount, Statesville, Winston-SalemNorth Dakota: Fargo, Grand Forks, Minot, WillistonNebraska: Lincoln, OmahaNew Hampshire: ManchesterNew Jersey: Atlantic City, Bergen County, Camden, Essex County, Monmouth, Passaic County, Perth Amboy, Trenton, Union CountyNew York: Albany, Binghamton/Johnson City, Bronx, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Elmira, Jamestown, Lower Westchester County, Manhattan, Niagara Falls, Poughkeepsie, Queens, Rochester, Schenectady, Staten Island, Syracuse, Troy, UticaOhio: Akron, Canton, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Hamilton, Lima, Lorain, Portsmouth, Springfield, Toledo, Warren, YoungstownOklahoma: Ada, Alva, Enid, Miami Ottawa County, Muskogee, Norman, Oklahoma City, South McAlester, TulsaOregon: PortlandPennsylvania: Allentown, Altoona, Bethlehem, Chester, Erie, Harrisburg, Johnstown, Lancaster, McKeesport, New Castle, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barre, YorkRhode Island: Pawtucket & Central Falls, Providence, WoonsocketSouth Carolina: Aiken, Charleston, Columbia, Greater Anderson, Greater Greensville, Orangeburg, Rock Hill, Spartanburg, SumterSouth Dakota: Aberdeen, Huron, Milbank, Mitchell, Rapid City, Sioux Falls, Vermillion, WatertownTennessee: Chattanooga, Elizabethton, Erwin, Greenville, Johnson City, Knoxville, Memphis, NashvilleTexas: Amarillo, Austin, Beaumont, Dallas, El Paso, Forth Worth, Galveston, Houston, Port Arthur, San Antonio, Waco, Wichita FallsUtah: Ogden, Salt Lake CityVirginia: Bristol, Danville, Harrisonburg, Lynchburg, Newport News, Norfolk, Petersburg, Phoebus, Richmond, Roanoke, StauntonVermont: Bennington, Brattleboro, Burlington, Montpelier, Newport City, Poultney, Rutland, Springfield, St. Albans, St. Johnsbury, WindsorWashington: Seattle, Spokane, TacomaWisconsin: Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee County, Oshkosh, RacineWest Virginia: Charleston, Huntington, WheelingAn example of a map produced by the HOLC of Philadelphia: