Chocolate City De-Chocolatizing
Rob Goodspeed does a basic projection of demographic trends, and suggests that DC will shift from majority black to plurality black in 2014:
Given demographic trends since 2000, the District of Columbia will no longer have a Black majority somewhere around 2014. That’s what I found after completing a simple projection using U.S. Census population data from the 1990 and 2000 census, and 2006 and 2007 American Community Survey population estimates. No matter the approach (trends since 1990 or 2000, projecting population numbers or percentages), every projection found somewhere around 2014 would be the turning point when D.C. would enter a new racial era where no major group could claim a majority.
Since 1990, the Black share of the D.C. population has fallen 11.2%. That decline was made up by increases in four other categories: White (6.2%), Asian (1.2%), other (2.2%), and two or more races (1.6%). The U.S. Census Bureau allowed respondents to select multiple races for the first time in 2000, and asks separate questions for race and ethnicity. Over the same time period, the percent reporting Hispanic ethnicity has increased 2.9%.
Interesting stuff. A related development that will probably have a more concrete impact on the city will be the need to redraw the ward boundaries after the 2010 census. The nature of the recent population turnover in the city has been for some neighborhoods, especially east of the Anacostia, to lose population while others have gained a lot.
39 Responses to “Chocolate City De-Chocolatizing”
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October 28th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Why would “two or more races” be decreasing between 2007 and 2014?
October 28th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
After DC reaches 50% white population, they’ll get a congressional seat.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
“Two or more races” might decrease because “Other Race,” which presumably includes Hispanic, will probably increase.
I work in higher ed and the Dept. of Ed. recently mandated some changes to the methods we must use to collect ethnicity data, which I believe reflect changes in those used to collect census data. Basically, they believe “Hispanic” has historically been underrepresented, so they’ll soon overcorrect by asking first if a person if Hispanic. If the answer is yes, that’s what the person is counted as. If the answer is no, the person can identify as another race/ethnicity, including mixed race, which would include Hispanic + other.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Eric, isn’t ethnicity a separate question from race? You can be Hispanic as your ethnicity, but your race would be white or black or Indian or mixed or whatever you identify as. That’s why there’s a lot of discussion of “non-Hispanic whites”. Certainly the Hispanic percentage must be higher than that “other” slice in the graph.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Dammit, JayDawg beat me to it.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Gainin’ On Ya!
October 28th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I doubt these projections. Due to a coming recession, I expect crime to rise and a renewal of white flight to result from that. These numbers are from a different era.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
The Census Bureau has been very slow to recognize Hispanic as a race, instead stubbornly considering it an ethnicity. While that may be correct from a strictly biological viewpoint, it no longer comports with reality. For all practical purposes, Hispanics have become a de facto race in America, regardless of color.
It wouldn’t even be unprecedented to use a racial classification that’s disconnected from biology. Many of the people classified and accepted as black have only tiny degrees of black ancestry.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
KCinDC, I think you’re right– technically speaking “ethnicity” and “race” are different things but for the purposes of government data reporting the difference is apparently unimportant. “Hispanic” is the only ethnicity we’ve been told to collect, and it trumps any other race.
So, to take your example, a person who declares himself Hispanic by ethnicity but black by race is to be reported as Hispanic, period. (My institution plans to record any data on race the student provides, in case they need it to qualify for things like scholarships, but the government just wouldn’t be interested in it in that example.)
October 28th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
For all practical purposes, Hispanics have become a de facto race in America, regardless of color.
remember that many cubans, for example, are proud of their “pure spanish” background and strong identify as white. some mexicans took, though more in texas than cali.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Eric, maybe that’s how whatever data you collect works, but these graphs are based on census data, and the Census Bureau treats ethnicity and race as separate characteristics. That’s why “Hispanic” doesn’t appear on the graph, even though DC is about 15% Hispanic. The Hispanics are presumably mostly included in the white category in this analysis.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
In D.C., it’s raining white people.
To clear things up, here’s a Washington Post story from May that explains that the proportion of non-Hispanic whites is going up in D.C.:
“The latest census figures confirm that pattern, with non-Hispanic blacks accounting for 54 percent of the District’s population in 2007, compared with 60 percent in 2000. Meanwhile, the number of non-Hispanic whites increased from 28 to 33 percent in that period, while the Hispanic and non-Hispanic Asian population remained at 8 and 3 percent, respectively.”
There are only a tiny number of cities in the country where the share of non-Hispanic whites is increasing: D.C., perhaps the borough of Manhattan, maybe Portland. The Stuff White People Like places…
However, the political media is centered in D.C. and Manhattan, so our pundits, like Matt, have a wildly unrepresentative experience of what’s really happening in America demographically.
October 28th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
To explain the government’s methodology on reporting race/ethnicity: the Census Bureau asks about race, with a list of about 14 different races (at last count), and then they ask about ethnicity, with only two choices (Hispanic or non-Hispanic). They typically report the results both ways: e.g., Whites and Non-Hispanic Whites. In summary reports, however, government agencies often simplify charts to look something like this:
Non-Hispanic White
Non-Hispanic Black
Hispanic
Non-Hispanic Asian
Non-Hispanic Other
Non-Hispanic Mixed
The main exception to this fairly sensible procedure is crime statistics, where the government usually fails to break out Hispanics, typically lumping them in with whites. This serves to distract attention from Hispanic crime rate, since it’s simply not reported, and to raise the white crime rate, which slightly lowers the huge black-white crime ratio.
Thus, the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports “In 2005, [homicide] offending rates for blacks were more than 7 times higher than the rates for whites,” the Non-Hispanic Black to Non-Hispanic White ratio is actually even higher than 7x because a lot of Hispanics are lumped in with whites, and their crime rates tend to the be about 2.5 to 3 times higher than non-Hispanic whites.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
KCinDC, it’s possible I’m wrong in my assumption. The methods of collection for the data we report (i.e. the “Hispanic first, everything else second” rule) is mandated by the government. I assumed that the rules we are given are based on census conventions, but I could be wrong. If there’s one consistent thing about the new rules we’ve been given over the last year, it’s the inconsistency.
October 28th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
If you want to understand why our country’s ruling class is so enthusiastic for immigration, just look at the benefits mass immigration provides to whites in D.C.: the long run policy is to drive American-born African-Americans out of elite cities and replace them with a superior servant caste of less crime-prone, harder-working immigrants. It’s working so well in D.C. that the non-Hispanic white population of DC has been increasing.
October 28th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
: the long run policy is to drive American-born African-Americans out of elite cities and replace them with a superior servant caste of less crime-prone, harder-working immigrants. It’s working so well in D.C. that the non-Hispanic white population of DC has been increasing.
What? In absolute numbers, it is the whites who represent the largest influx of population into DC, driving down the number of African Americans. While non-white immigrants may have grown by large percentages, in terms of absolute numbers, they are not very large and cannot be claimed to have “replaced” the African American population to any significant degree.
October 28th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
In D.C., African-Americans are being replaced by black immigrants, who tend to be more obsequious. Thus, service workers in the travel industry in DC (e.g., hotel clerks, taxi drivers, etc.) is heavily African and/or Caribbean by this point.
October 28th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Why isn’t Steve Sailer fucking banned already?
jaaaaysus! Does Matt need some sort of in house racist to make his blog distinctive, or something?
October 28th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Will Ezra Klein finally get his Coffee shops in the future.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
“Sailer” is a pretty phony sounding name. I’ve always suspected Steve’s posts are just Matthew fucking with us.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
““Sailer” is a pretty phony sounding name. I’ve always suspected Steve’s posts are just Matthew fucking with us.”
Sailer is actually a popular voice on the right, who loves to attack Yglesias for some reason.l
October 28th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Earth to Steve Sailer:
Pigmentally-challenged persons who move to the D.C. area, if they open their eyes, learn that the African-American population is not a monolithic population of crime-prone people in menial jobs. Why, there are even black middle-class people who benefit when crime goes down, and others who move out of the city to buy houses in Silver Spring! Then they shop at the Silver Spring Whole Foods, sipping from a latte cup held in one hand while tossing arugula into their carts bunches at a time with the other.
Gentrification is a two-edged sword, but in D.C. it does not necessarily conform to your fevered racial fantasies.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Around St. Patrick’s Day, 2007, Ancestry.com issued a press release revealing that Barack Obama is part Irish. In fact his third great-grandfather on his mother’s side, Fulmoth Kearney, is Obama’s most recent connection with the
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