The Browning of America: a county-by-county look from 1990-2012

[Adam Griffin]

There are a lot of maps available that depict the percentage growth of a county's Hispanic, Asian or African-American population, but I have never been a huge fan of these. For starters, you cannot glance at one of these maps and quickly discern which counties have seen the most dramatic shifts in population make-up; maybe County A saw its Hispanic population quadruple in ten years from 1% to 4%, but that is less significant in many respects than County B's doubling from 10% to 20%.

Because of this, I wanted to create a map that outlined nominal changes in counties' white and non-white shares of the population in order to see an average rate of growth over 20 years or so among one group or the other. The result of that is below.

Again, just to clarify: this is measured in terms of percentage point increases among white or non-white groups as a share of the total population. Areas in white saw their white and non-white %s of the population shift by less than two points over 22 years. Each interval on the scale is essentially four points; the lightest shade would mean an increase in white/non-white % of pop by 2-6 points, the next shade 6-10 points, and so forth. The second/bottom map is the same as the first, with the gradients removed.

Full-sized image: Click Here


The other map is a trend map of sorts, depicting:

• which counties have seen their white share of the population increase
• which counties have seen an increase in non-whites as a % of population but at a rate slower than the national average
• which counties have seen an increase in non-whites as a % of population but with a trend that more or less mimics the national average
• which counties have seen an increase in non-whites as a % of population and have trended non-white faster than the national average
• which counties have seen an increase in non-whites as a % of population and have trended non-white at a rate of more than double the national average

Full-sized image: Click Here

[Ban my account ffs!]

Awesome job!

DC really sticks out in the trend map.  And Atlanta.  Funny how the inner cities are whitening while the suburbs are very rapidly browning.

[Gass3268]

Awesome job!

DC really sticks out in the trend map.  And Atlanta.  Funny how the inner cities are whitening while the suburbs are very rapidly browning.

DC will probably be plurality white by the 2020 census. In 2000 the city was 30.8% white and 60.0% African American. In 2010 it was 38.5% white and 50.7% African American. Big new fancy apartment buildings are constantly being built in historically black neighborhoods like Columbia Heights, U Street and NoMa.   

[old timey villain]

wow, Atlanta really really sticks out. This map really shows what I've been experiencing in the Atlanta area my whole life. It used to be that Atlanta was heavily black while almost every suburb was totally white. Now there's a lot more white people moving into the city but the suburbs are much more diverse than they ever were, even the ones that are still considered white like Alpharetta.

[Adam Griffin]

wow, Atlanta really really sticks out. This map really shows what I've been experiencing in the Atlanta area my whole life. It used to be that Atlanta was heavily black while almost every suburb was totally white. Now there's a lot more white people moving into the city but the suburbs are much more diverse than they ever were, even the ones that are still considered white like Alpharetta.

The shifts in Georgia are phenomenal, and the metro area's changes are obviously the reason Georgia will go Democratic in the near future. It is maps such as these that really make it more obvious to those who doubt. Some of it is simple shifting of existing voters/citizens from inner metro counties to outer ones, but there is a lot of growth from out-of-state as well. I actually started with Georgia and was impressed with the rate of browning in the metro counties, but persistently expected to see other metropolitan areas with larger shifts in population; there were none. The only one that really comes close is NoVA, but its shifts are much more tempered and balanced throughout its metro area.

Another interesting fact: of the top five counties in the US in terms of non-white growth as a % of population between 1990-2012, four of them are in Georgia.

#1: Clayton County, GA
71.3% (182,052) -> 14.7% (265,888)

#2: Rockdale County, GA
89.7% (54,091) -> 39.3% (85,820)

#3: Gwinnett County, GA
89.4% (352,910) -> 42.4% (842,046)

#4: Osceola County, FL
81.2% (107,728) -> 38.2% (287,416)

#5: Douglas County, GA
90.3% (71,120) -> 47.6% (133,971)

[Adam Griffin]

The shifts in Georgia are phenomenal, and the metro area's changes are obviously the reason Georgia will go Democratic in the near future. It is maps such as these that really make it more obvious to those who doubt. Some of it is simple shifting of existing voters/citizens from inner metro counties to outer ones, but there is a lot of growth from out-of-state as well.

I'd just like to add-on to/clarify this and ramble a bit more about Georgia, since it's such an interesting state!

It's clearly visible that a chunk of central Georgia counties have become whiter over the past twenty years. Many of these counties have/had sizable black populations, but not to the extent of the counties further south; I hypothesize that a third cause of the metro Atlanta shifts is black flight from many of these counties. Another variable in the trend may also be a more recent wave of white flight from southern suburban Atlanta to these more rural counties, especially in the wake of almost certain black flight from there in recent years.

While to the untrained eye many may think that the blue counties in Georgia on this map are part of the Black Belt, almost all of them are instead counties to the north/adjacent to the Black Belt. Intriguing - it's like watching oil and water mingle. Another interesting element is that this phenomenon does not appear to be occurring in any other state with a Black Belt. I hypothesize that this is due to the fact that no other state has a developed metropolitan area to the extent that Atlanta is, while states like North Carolina have many different mid-sized cities scattered fairly evenly across the state.

[Horus]

What's up with some of those counties in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado? Are Latinos leaving, or are they starting to solely identify as white?

[Skill and Chance]

What's also interesting is the relatively slow pace of change in NC.

[jimrtex]

What's up with some of those counties in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado? Are Latinos leaving, or are they starting to solely identify as white?

Low income, and low population.   So young people leave to Denver or Albuquerque.   Retirees or persons not tied to a city for work, can afford to buy a sizable chunk of land, because they aren't having to compete for limited space in the mountain valleys in the central Rockies.  And because of the low population, a few 100 people represent 10% of the population.

[Foucaulf]

I'm digging through this map and want to comment on trends on the Great Plains. Apart from above-average growth in the Kansas city area, there are a few counties that stick out in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and northern Texas. You can also add in Nobles County in Minnesota.

For those who don't know, the answer is meat. All those counties in which the non-white population is increasing at double the national rate are home to meat packing plants; southwest Kansas is a major transit hub for meat; and the Oklahoma/Texas panhandles, flat as they are, have relied on ranching (The Worthington meat processing plant in MN was subject to an illegal immigration raid a few years back.) The rises there are almost entirely Hispanic, where they provide cheap labour in a naturally growing but dangerous profession. Same goes for that one dark brown county in Montana - Phillips County, that state's meat hub.

The same trend should also be taking place in Florida, only with oranges instead of meat. That is also more well known.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I'm digging through this map and want to comment on trends on the Great Plains. Apart from above-average growth in the Kansas city area, there are a few counties that stick out in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and northern Texas. You can also add in Nobles County in Minnesota.

For those who don't know, the answer is meat. All those counties in which the non-white population is increasing at double the national rate are home to meat packing plants; southwest Kansas is a major transit hub for meat; and the Oklahoma/Texas panhandles, flat as they are, have relied on ranching (The Worthington meat processing plant in MN was subject to an illegal immigration raid a few years back.) The rises there are almost entirely Hispanic, where they provide cheap labour in a naturally growing but dangerous profession. Same goes for that one dark brown county in Montana - Phillips County, that state's meat hub.

The same trend should also be taking place in Florida, only with oranges instead of meat. That is also more well known.

It's important to note that these rapid demographic transformations haven't been without strife. The meat-packing industry used to offer decent paying, oftentimes unionized jobs for white Americans in these states and the wave of Mexican immigration has come in the wake of union busting, layoffs and reductions in standards. The result has been severe backlash in these communities. Truly the most of unfortunate of circumstances from a leftist perspective: struggling whites political energies are focused on explicitly racist policies while Mexicans, certainly disposed to left-minded rhetoric, are forced to fight for their very existence instead of participating in organizing drives.

[Sol]

I wonder- how soon until these increasingly Hispanic parts of Western Kansas become D-voting?

[Skill and Chance]

I wonder- how soon until these increasingly Hispanic parts of Western Kansas become D-voting?

They were all at least 67% Romney last year.  It will take a great while.

[Skill and Chance]

However, Republicans are already slipping a bit in West Texas.  From a trend perspective, of course.

[ElectionsGuy]

I wonder- how soon until these increasingly Hispanic parts of Western Kansas become D-voting?

To give you an idea, majority Hispanic (58%) Seward County went 70% for Romney. Parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico are even more Romney and equally as Hispanic. So it would literally take until its like 70-75% Hispanic at least with the current voting and trends.

[Adam Griffin]

I realized that I made a mistake with the trend map. All of the counties that saw white/non-white populations shift by less than two points (the white-colored counties on the first map; comprises some of the lighter blue counties on the trend map) are classified on trend map as counties that have become more non-white since 1990. Based on what I recall, somewhere between 30-40% of these counties actually became whiter during that time period. Unfortunately, I did not keep track of which of these counties became slightly whiter and which ones became slightly less so, since I initially did not intend to make anything other than the first map.

[Adam Griffin]

I'm bumping this for later, because I think it'll be cool to look at this compared to the 2016 swing map and see how much of a correlation there is.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What's going on in with the areas surrounding Metro Richmond?