US Census Shows White Majority Shrinking
The US Census Bureau has been gradually publishing results from the decennial 2020 Census. Back in April they released preliminary data showing which states would gain or lose a seat in the House of Representatives, and thus gain or lose votes in the Electoral College, based on population. Today they published data with rich demographics about the people who make up the United States.
The lead story that many media sources are running today is that the White majority in the US is shrinking as the country becomes more racially diverse. Non-Hispanic Whites now make up 57.8% of the population, down from 63.7% in 2010 (source: America Counts Stories, US Census Bureau, 12 Aug 2021[1]). The multiracial category grew the most since 2010, its population more than tripling. The number of states where White people are less than 50% of the population increased from 4 to 6. Nevada and Maryland joined Hawaii, California, Texas, and New Mexico.
Cities Grew, Rural Areas Lost
Another headline about today's data you see as you scan news feeds is that America's largest cities all grew in size. The top 10 cities- New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas and San Jose- are now all over 1,000,000 population. And Phoenix grew enough to overtake Philadelphia for the #5 spot. Sorry, Philly. (Example coverage: The Hill article, 12 Aug 2021)
More broadly, 4 out of 5 metropolitan areas grew in population. And non-metro areas, which is to say rural areas not economically connected to a larger city, mostly lost population. This infographic from a CNN.com article published 12 Aug 2021 is insightful:
You can see that geographic areas that lost population are quite widespread. These are mostly the big sparse areas of the US. It's also interesting to see that even in states like Texas, which overall gained population- Texas growing enough to gain 2 seats in the House of Representatives- the gains are all in big metropolitan areas. Rural America is shrinking.
[1] Yes I cited a primary source document in my blog. Again.
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/100148.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]
The lead story that many media sources are running today is that the White majority in the US is shrinking as the country becomes more racially diverse. Non-Hispanic Whites now make up 57.8% of the population, down from 63.7% in 2010 (source: America Counts Stories, US Census Bureau, 12 Aug 2021[1]). The multiracial category grew the most since 2010, its population more than tripling. The number of states where White people are less than 50% of the population increased from 4 to 6. Nevada and Maryland joined Hawaii, California, Texas, and New Mexico.
Cities Grew, Rural Areas Lost
Another headline about today's data you see as you scan news feeds is that America's largest cities all grew in size. The top 10 cities- New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas and San Jose- are now all over 1,000,000 population. And Phoenix grew enough to overtake Philadelphia for the #5 spot. Sorry, Philly. (Example coverage: The Hill article, 12 Aug 2021)
More broadly, 4 out of 5 metropolitan areas grew in population. And non-metro areas, which is to say rural areas not economically connected to a larger city, mostly lost population. This infographic from a CNN.com article published 12 Aug 2021 is insightful:
You can see that geographic areas that lost population are quite widespread. These are mostly the big sparse areas of the US. It's also interesting to see that even in states like Texas, which overall gained population- Texas growing enough to gain 2 seats in the House of Representatives- the gains are all in big metropolitan areas. Rural America is shrinking.
[1] Yes I cited a primary source document in my blog. Again.
[This entry was cross-posted from https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/100148.html. Please comment there using OpenID. That's where most of the action is!]