Are Blacks Getting Crowded Out?
- William Fulton
- Aug 16, 2021
- 4 min read
The predominant gentrification narrative in the last few years, especially in the Bay Areas, has been that affluent whites are crowding out longtime Black residents in older neighborhoods that are now viewed as desirable. Last week’s 2020 Census release, which gives us data at the municipal level, does show that Blacks are leaving cities in the metropolitan core are relocating to cities on the periphery. But the question of who’s replacing those Black residents in the core remains hard to answer – in large part because the Hispanic population is growing much faster than the white population in these areas and because of the dramatic increase in people identifying themselves as multiracial on the Census forms. For starters, the Black population is dropping slightly. The Census numbers released the other day revealed that the Black population dropped by about 44,000, or 2%, between 2010 and 2020. This is consistent with recent trends. The Black population has been stagnant for 30 years, hovering at a little over 2 million people. (During this time, the state’s population has grown from 29 million to 39 million.) And many cities in the metropolitan core with large Black populations are seeing significant declines in Black residents. Los Angeles – by far the largest city in the state – saw the largest net decrease in Black residents, at about 27,000. But the next four cities in are all cities that historically had large black populations: Oakland, Compton, Inglewood, and Richmond. And many historically Black cities that did not have a large decrease in raw numbers saw a significant percentage decrease. In East Palo Alto, for example, the Black population dropped by almost 30%. (Interestingly, San Francisco – often viewed as a place where Blacks are being crowded out completely – experienced a relatively minor drop in the Black population. About 45,000 residents of San Francisco are Black – a drop of only 1,000 in the last decade.) Cities With The Biggest Loss In Black Population, 2010-2020
