Immigrants, Minorities Leave Cities

This Census report shows that minorities and immigrants are following jobs and moving to the suburbs and small towns. Now small towns will be more diverse and hopefully, the residents enjoy the change. DP

By Conor Dougherty, WSJ

Immigrants and minorities have moved away from cities in growing numbers since 2000, spreading the national trend toward diversity to the suburbs and beyond.

New data released Tuesday as part of the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey show that immigrants and minorities are moving to smaller areas. While both groups are still a large share of the population in urban areas, a growing number have followed jobs to smaller communities.

“Dispersion and diversity is getting local. It’s coming to small-town America,” said William Frey, a senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

The data focus on communities with as few as 20,000 people. The population figures are estimates for the years between 2005 and 2007. The change reflects growing diversity nationwide. The share of white population is declining in about half of U.S. counties, the result of immigration — primarily Hispanic — as well as generally higher birth rates among minorities.

In general, the smaller a community, the larger its white population. But the minority population is growing fast. Between 2000 and 2005-2007, communities with populations between 30,000 and 40,000 saw the percentage share of white residents decrease 4.4 percentage points, to 67.5%, according to Mr. Frey’s analysis of Census data. White population share fell 4.2 percentage points to 64.7% in communities between 50,000 and 60,000; and 3.9 percentage points to 62.7% in places with 60,000 to 100,000 people.

Whites are a minority in cities with populations over one million, but that decline has slowed in recent years. Whites accounted for 34.3% of the population in cities over one million between 2005 and 2007, down 1.3 percentage points from 2000.

Some of the most striking demographic change has been in fast-growing communities on the edge of urban areas. In Enterprise, Nev., a community of 65,000 on the outskirts of Las Vegas, the Hispanic population increased roughly fivefold between 2000 and 2005-2007. The black population grew roughly ninefold over the period and Asians fourteenfold.