8 More Major Cities Now Have White Minorities

Eight major metropolitan areas can have joined the ranks of minority-majority regions, according to a new study. Data from the 2010 Census showed that Washington D.C., Memphis, Las Vegas, New York City and four other locations, joined places like L.A., Miami, and Houston in having whites as minorities.

Highlights from the report include:

• Non-whites and Latinos accounted for 98% of population growth in large metro areas from 2000 to 2010.
• Nearly half of Latinos live in just 10 large metro areas, but those metro areas accounted for only 36 percent of Hispanic growth over the past decade.
• Latinos and Asians combined accounted for 60% of the population growth, though the latter community remained mostly concentrated in three specific areas, New York, San Francisco, and L.A.

Additionally, while the black population experienced growth in the southern cities of Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston, they experienced a decline in northern areas like Detroit and Chicago for the first time. The Washington Post, covering an area that saw one of the most dramatic ethnic shifts, reports that one reason for the demographic change is the aging white population in relation to the relative youth of Latinos and Asians.

Speaking to the Post on what this will mean for the local governments affected by the demographic changes, one analyst noted:

“What’s happened is pivotal,” said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution who conducted the analysis. “Large metropolitan areas will be the laboratories for change. The measures they take to help minorities assimilate and become part of the labor force will be studied by other parts of the country that are whiter and have­n’t been touched as much by the change.”

Connecting this to an earlier story about an economically and ethnically divided America, officials in cities with minority-majority populations who have been hit hardest by the recession, should especially take note.