Texas Demographic Changes

[CountyTy90]

My senior year of college I needed like 1 credit hour to graduate, so I decided to map the demographic changes in the state of Texas from 1980-2010 using the Census Bureau data. I found some interesting results. I thought it would be cool to do this in a GIF version to show the spread of Hispanics and the decline of black populations in East Texas. I have raw data if anyone wants individual numbers.

White



Black



Hispanic

[old timey villain]

Damn, looks like Texas is becoming less black.

I guess what's happening is that Texas' black population and cultural heart is moving from the Piney Woods of east Texas into the cities, while those rural counties are experiencing an influx in their Hispanic population, further diluting the black influence.

[CountyTy90]

Damn, looks like Texas is becoming less black.

I guess what's happening is that Texas' black population and cultural heart is moving from the Piney Woods of east Texas into the cities, while those rural counties are experiencing an influx in their Hispanic population, further diluting the black influence.

Yeah I think it's kinda like white flight where blacks are definately moving into the cities and Hispanics have just grown so much that they've overtaken black in most counties in 2010 when in 1980 East Texas was way more black than Hispanic.

Waller County was 45% black in 1980 and dropped all the way down to about 30% in 2010 while Hispanics went from 5% in 1980 to 20% in 1990. Just one of the many counties that's happened to.

[memphis]

Seems like this would be a tricky thing to do because the Census Bureau has changed how they do race over the years. From some rudimentary googling, it looks to me like the percent of Texan selecting "black" has increased very slightly since 1980. There's no doubt whatsoever though that the Hispanic increase has been much more substantial. Any data for Asians? Even Hank Hill in the little town of Arlen saw an Asian family move in during the time period you studied.

[jimrtex]

Damn, looks like Texas is becoming less black.

I guess what's happening is that Texas' black population and cultural heart is moving from the Piney Woods of east Texas into the cities, while those rural counties are experiencing an influx in their Hispanic population, further diluting the black influence.

Yeah I think it's kinda like white flight where blacks are definately moving into the cities and Hispanics have just grown so much that they've overtaken black in most counties in 2010 when in 1980 East Texas was way more black than Hispanic.

Waller County was 45% black in 1980 and dropped all the way down to about 30% in 2010 while Hispanics went from 5% in 1980 to 20% in 1990. Just one of the many counties that's happened to.

Waller County is on the Brazos River, and so had a large slave population.  In addition, Waller County was split off from Austin County for racial reasons.  If someone moves to Houston and it doesn't work out, you can move back home, at least on a temporary basis.  It is a bit harder to move from Chicago beck to Mississippi.  Prairie View A&M, a historically black university is in Waller County.

But it is right on the edge of the Houston metropolitan area.  Katy is at the triple point of Harris, Fort Bend and Harris counties, but most of the large scale development is in Fort Bend and Harris counties.  If you were building houses, as opposed to buying them, Waller County would likely be affordable.  There is also a freeway (US-290, TX-6) northwest from Houston, but the western boundary of Harris County is angled at more of a WNW, which means the tract development is mostly in Harris County.  It is commutable to Waller County, but it be more people who buy a few acres so they can live in the country.

Waller County has about tripled in population since 1980, but is just getting to the point where its will take off.   Fort Bend and Montgomery counties in 1970 both had a population comparable to what Waller does now.  Fort Bend now has 650,000; and Montgomery is at 800,000.

[CountyTy90]

Seems like this would be a tricky thing to do because the Census Bureau has changed how they do race over the years. From some rudimentary googling, it looks to me like the percent of Texan selecting "black" has increased very slightly since 1980. There's no doubt whatsoever though that the Hispanic increase has been much more substantial. Any data for Asians? Even Hank Hill in the little town of Arlen saw an Asian family move in during the time period you studied.

I didn't do Asians by themselves just because in 1980 and 1990 their populations were so small, but by 2000 they really started to make a presence in Fort Bend and Collin Counties.

I lumped Asians in my "other" category with mixed race and Native Americans since Texas in 1980 and 1990 had pretty small populations of these races. But by 2000 Asians and more than one race really started to grow.

I might have maps of Other Races, but my laptop recently crashed so I'm living out of a flashdrive haha.

Texas has two very small indian reservations (only state recognized though) in Maverick County and in Polk County and in the 1980 Census when "other" race in the state was relatively low, you can clearly see these two counties stand out with their relatively small Native American population.