U.S. Census of 2000

▪ 2002

by Eric Schmitt

      The 2000 census of the United States revealed a nation that had become ethnically and racially more diverse as cities and suburbs filled with new immigrants. It also showed that the migration from the Frost Belt to the Sun Belt was continuing. About 44% of the nation's 30.5 million foreign-born residents, or 13.3 million people, arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s. By 2000 immigrants constituted 11% of the country's population, the largest share since the 1930s, and nearly one in five Americans did not speak English at home. Overall, the nation's population grew by about 13% to 281.4 million.

 The Hispanic population rose 58% in the last decade, which brought it into rough parity, or better, with African Americans as the country's largest minority. U.S. Census Bureau figures showed that the number of Hispanics, who have Spanish-speaking ancestry but may belong to any race, soared to 35.3 million from the 22.4 million in the 1990 census. (See Map—> for Hispanic population by state.) By contrast, the number of African Americans increased by about 16% to 34.7 million from the 30 million counted in the 1990 census. Demographers had long anticipated that Hispanics would supplant African Americans as the nation's largest minority, but earlier census reports had forecast that this would not happen until 2005.

 While Hispanics remained concentrated primarily in the Southwest, California, Florida, and New York, new immigrants from Mexico and Central America moved to states such as North Carolina, Georgia, and Iowa, where the Hispanic population was almost nonexistent a decade ago. (See Map—> for percent increase in Hispanic population by county.) Hispanics often became a mainstay in many low-paying, labour-intensive industries. In Atlanta, Ga., and Memphis, Tenn., for instance, they dominated the construction and landscaping trades. In eastern North Carolina they processed hogs. In Arkansas they plucked chickens.

      In the 2000 census, for the first time, Americans were allowed to identify themselves as a member of more than one race, choosing from six racial categories; this option was taken by nearly seven million people, about 2% of the overall population. Demographers concluded that the growing waves of immigrants and the increasing numbers of interracial marriages in the country accounted for this result. The new multiracial measurement was especially striking in regard to young people. For example, African Americans aged 17 and younger were nearly four times as likely as those 50 and older to identify themselves as belonging to more than one race.

      By permitting people to choose an array of racial identities—white, African American, Asian, American Indian, Alaska native, Pacific islander, native Hawaiian, or “some other race”—the 2000 census presented a matrix of 63 racial categories, compared with 5 a decade ago. The American Indian category offered one of the more interesting glimpses into the census's new racial classification. The number of American Indians and Alaska natives who defined themselves by only that category grew by 26% in the past decade to 2.5 million. When, however, the number of people who said they were part Indian were added, the total ballooned to 4.1 million, a 110% increase since 1990.

      The changing face of the U.S. was reflected in cities, suburbs, and rural areas. For the first time, nearly half of the nation's 100 largest cities were home to more African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and other minorities than to non-Hispanic whites. While the population of the country's fastest-growing cities, such as Las Vegas, Nev., and Phoenix, Ariz., increased in all racial and ethnic categories, the vast majority of U.S. cities—71 of the top 100—lost non-Hispanic white residents. As whites left many urban cores in the 1990s for suburbs and beyond, the nation's largest cities gained 3.8 million Hispanic residents, a 43% increase from a decade ago. Many cities, including Boston, Los Angeles, and Dallas, Texas, would have lost population in the 1990s were it not for large gains in the number of Hispanics.

      The mixture of white flight from urban downtowns and the influx of Hispanics, in particular, underscored the extent to which immigration and higher birthrates among the foreign-born had changed the complexion of cities, fueling a renaissance in some urban centres and forcing civic leaders to confront difficult decisions on how to cope with a new and fast-changing citizenry. Overall, the nation's largest cities grew nearly twice as fast in the 1990s as in the 1980s, with three out of every four urban centres gaining population. In the cities with more than 100,000 people, however, the growth was uneven. Reversing a 50-year trend of population loss, Chicago grew by 112,000 people. New York exceeded eight million people for the first time, its highest population ever. Philadelphia and Detroit, however, lost population.

      Western and southern cities, such as Austin, Texas, and Charlotte, N.C., grew the fastest, a result of booming economies and an influx of immigrants. Urban industrial centres in the Rust Belt, such as Cleveland, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pa., and such Middle Atlantic and Northeastern cities as Hartford, Conn., and Baltimore, Md., generally declined as jobs and people migrated elsewhere. A small but growing number of cities with declining populations, such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, began to embrace new strategies to attract immigrants to replenish shrinking neighbourhoods, fill labour shortages, and inject greater ethnic diversity into their communities.

      Even as most cities were thriving in the 1990s, many rural areas, particularly in the Great Plains, continued to empty out. The Census Bureau found that 676 of the nation's 3,141 counties lost people. Most of the decline took place in wheat, ranching, and oil country in Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. In Kansas, for example, there are now more “frontier counties”—defined by the census as having from two to six people per square mile—than there were in 1890.

      In a preview of official 2000 census data to be released in 2002 from the questionnaire known as the long form, the Census Bureau disclosed results of a test survey of 700,000 households. Highlights from that survey include the following:

● More than two million grandparents are rearing their grandchildren, the first time the Census Bureau has kept track of that statistic.

● In 2000, 82% of people aged 25 and older had graduated from high school and 25% had at least a bachelor's degree. In 1990 the figures were 75% and 20%, respectively.

● More than 90% of households owned a car, van, or truck in 2000, the highest share ever, and 18% owned three or more vehicles. More than four million people worked at home in 2000, a sharp increase over a decade earlier.

      The census was not without political controversy. In March the Census Bureau decided against statistically adjusting the 2000 population tally. Several congressional Democrats and Democratic-leaning groups argued that adjusted figures should be used because the 2000 census, while touted as the most accurate in history, still missed millions of people, mainly racial minorities and renters, and double-counted others, mainly whites and homeowners. At stake was what population counts would be used to allocate federal aid and redraw congressional and other legislative districts. About $185 billion a year was distributed on the basis of population counts from the 1990 census.Eric Schmitt is national immigration and census correpondent for the New York Times.

* * *