Minorities Become Majorities in More U.S. Cities

We’ve known for a long time that the day would come when whites would no longer be a majority in America. A pair of new census analyses shows it’s near at hand.

Twenty-two of the country’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, including New York City and Washington, D.C., are now “majority-minority,” meaning ethnic minorities account for more than half of their population, according to a report released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution. That number has grown from 14 in the 2000 census and just five in 1990. In all, the percentage of non-Hispanic whites in the nation’s large metro areas has dropped from 71 percent in 1990 to 57 percent in 2010. The Washington Post offers a handy infographic and interactive map for those who want to dive into the data.

Asians and Hispanics were the fastest-growing groups nationwide; each increased by about 43 percent in the past decade. Asians are heavily concentrated in three major cities—Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco—while Hispanic population growth has been more widespread. The black population increased by a more modest 12 percent overall, rising mainly in Southern cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston. The nation’s aging white population grew by just 1.2 percent, though whites remain a large majority in most smaller cities and rural areas.

The report followed an analysis last week by the same Brookings demographer, William Frey, which found that the majority-minority tipping point has already arrived for infants. The 2010 census results showed that 49.8 percent of children under the age of one were minorities, a number that has likely surpassed 50 percent by now. More than a quarter of infants are Hispanic, while about 14 percent are black and 4 percent Asian. The Wall Street Journal has an interactive map breaking down the country’s ethnic makeup by age group.

“What’s happened is pivotal,” Frey told the Washington Post. “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 change.”