Rapid changes in racial/ethnic composition in Houston and Detroit continued

Continuing with the previous post about census tracts that have experienced a 20+ percentage point increase in the visible minority share in Houston and Detroit, now here are numbers for how the populations changed.

What I've done is added up the census tracts for areas where the biggest increases in population share were by Asians, blacks and Hispanics respectively.

For example, Houston had 10 census tracts where the visible minority share increased by 20+ percentage points AND the visible minority group that saw the biggest increase in population share was Asians. The total populations of these 10 census tracts by race in 2000 and 2010 are given in the first section of the table below.

What you see is that areas experiencing such large influxes in Asians have experienced rapid population growth, which is no surprise since from the maps they're mostly on the suburban fringe (in Houston's W/SW suburbs). There has actually been a substantial influx of all races in these areas, including whites, it's just that the minority population grew even faster.

In areas where blacks or Hispanics were the fastest growing minority, you see that the white population did decrease, although not hugely, and the overall population still grew quite rapidly, at a rate significantly faster than the metro average.

You also see that areas where the Asian share grew fastest had relatively even numbers of Asians and Hispanics in 2000. The same is true for Blacks as for Asians. However, in the areas with the greatest influxes of Hispanics, Hispanics were already the dominant minority in 2000.

All in all, the combined population of these census tracts was almost 1 million, or about a sixth of the whole metro area. Also, there are a lot more census tracts where Hispanics were the fastest growing minority vs blacks or Asians. That shouldn't come as a surprise, since the net change at the metro area level was:

Whites: 80,427
Asians: 155,631
Hispanics: 747,275
Blacks: 213,194

As for Detroit:

Areas where Asians experienced the greatest increase in population share followed a similar pattern as in Houston, with the white population still increasing, just not as fast as other minorities.

In areas where blacks experienced the greatest increase in population share, it was mostly a case of whites moving out and blacks moving in, with a slight overall population loss. Compared to Houston, the initial (and final) white population share in these neighbourhoods was significantly higher.

Areas where Hispanics experienced the greatest increase in population share saw a slight increase in overall population, but that was not enough to avoid a substantial decrease in the white population. The black population in these census tracts increased as well, while Asians were never really a significant share of the population.

Compared to Houston, the total number of people in these neighbourhoods is lower (220k vs 988k), which shouldn't come as a surprise considering the much greater influx of minorities into the Houston area to drive these sorts of changes. The changes in Detroit were largely driven by blacks moving out of the city and into the suburbs, rather than an increase in the black population (Metro Detroit has actually lost not just whites but also blacks from 2000 to 2010).

While the Hispanic and Asian populations of Metro Detroit have grown, the 2000 population and influx during the 00s were fairly small so they played only a minor role in the changes in VM% in most of metro Detroit.