America is Becoming More Diverse

The Brookings Institution has used recently released U.S. Census Bureau estimates for 2018 to map out where America is becoming more diverse. Six Maps that Reveal America's Expanding Racial Diversity looks particularly at the metro areas where the white, black, Hispanic and Asian populations have shown marked growth.

The article starts with an interactive map which shows where minority groups are highly represented by county. 'Highly represented' is determined where the percentage of a county population for a minority group is higher than its percentage of the US population as a whole. I don't think that this map reveals anything new about areas where racial groups are highly represented. Black Americans are highly represented in the black belt and Hispanic Americans are highly represented in states bordering Mexico. The map is more revealing on the racial diversity in each county. If you hover over a county on the map you can view the percentage of the total population made up by each racial group.

The Brooking Institution has also mapped out the metro areas where each racial group has seen the most growth. Individual maps for each racial group visualize the towns and cities where a racial group has shown the largest growth from 2010-2018. These maps are quite revealing. For example many southern cities have seen the highest growth in the black population mirroring a trend in recent decades of strong growth in the black population in southern states.

The towns and cities with the strongest growth in the Hispanic population are spread across the United States. Metro areas which have shown the highest growth in the Asian population are mostly "located in interior parts of the country, especially in the Midwest and Northeast". Metro areas which have seen a growth in the white population are mostly in Florida, Texas and the Mountain West.