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Fast Company
9 hours ago
- General
- Fast Company
As Metro Detroit grows for a second year in a row, neighborhoods have shifted
Following decades of population loss, Detroit may finally be turning a corner. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent estimates, the city saw an increase in population for both 2023 and 2024. An additional 11,000 people moved into the city in the years 2023 and 2024, a small gain in a city with a population of 645,705—but one which marked a symbolic shift. The census data shows just over 1% growth in the past year alone and 0.7% the year before compared with a nearly 25% loss between 2000 and 2010. As an urban sociologist studying issues related to race and ethnicity, I am interested in how Detroit's population is changing, and where different groups live in both the city and its suburbs. Analyzing population trends in the metro Detroit area using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, I wanted to understand how racial, ethnic and socioeconomic trends are unfolding, and what those changes can tell us about the evolution and vitality of Detroit. Black Detroiters relocate, city diversifies From 2010 to 2023, Detroit's racial and ethnic makeup continued to gradually diversify even as the city was declining in population. While Black residents are still the majority, their proportion of the total number fell from around 84% to 79%. Other groups, in contrast, increased their share of the city's population. Between 2010 and 2023, the percentage of Hispanic residents grew from 6.6% to 8.3%, the percentage of white residents grew from 8.2% to 10.7%, and the percentage of Asian residents grew from 1.3% to 1.7%. These shifts reflect a steady and ongoing diversification of Detroit's population, indicative of new migration trends and shifting neighborhood dynamics. Suburbs in flux In addition to Detroit's recent population growth, a broader story is unfolding in the city's suburbs. The population of the suburban area as a whole increased 0.73% from 2023 to 2024, but growth was not evenly spread. Collectively, the outer-ring suburbs gained almost 20,000 people, increasing by 1%. Communities such as the city of Troy and Macomb Township accounted for a significant share of that growth. Inner-ring suburbs, such as Southfield, Warren and others, grew less vigorously – gaining just 4,000 people, or 0.31%. These differences highlight the necessity of complicating the conventional city-versus-suburb narrative to acknowledge the many economic and racial divisions across the metropolitan region. The socioeconomic statuses of residents of the inner- and outer-ring suburbs diverged between 2000 and 2020. My analysis of census data shows that although both subregions witnessed increases in median household incomes, the rates of change were significantly higher in the outer-ring suburbs, with a 37.7% increase versus a 16.8% increase in the inner rings. The data shows a similar trend in higher education attainment. Outer ring suburbs gained 7.1% more residents with college degrees or higher during this period, while the inner suburbs lost 7.5%. Homeownership patterns in the two suburban regions also diverged over those two decades, increasing 18% in the outer rings and decreasing 10% in the inner rings. The data on poverty and immigration also reveal contrasting results. According to my calculations of census data, inner-ring suburbs experienced a 77% increase in poverty, while the outer ring experienced a lesser, though considerable, 50.8% bump in poverty during the 2000-2020 period. Meanwhile, during the same time period, the foreign-born populations in the outer suburbs expanded by 24.9%, with increases of at least 10,000 in places such as Sterling Heights, Novi and Canton. In contrast, the inner suburbs saw more modest gains—around 5,000 in cities such as Dearborn Heights and Warren—while their overall foreign-born share declined by nearly 20%. Together, the above trends highlight the necessity of not viewing the suburban area as a monolith. These patterns reflect national trends, in which many older, inner-ring suburbs are experiencing socioeconomic stagnation or decline while newer, outer-ring suburbs continue to attract more people who have higher incomes. Mixed neighborhoods grow Residential segregation also differentiates inner and outer suburban rings. Segregation levels remain high in the inner suburbs, especially between white and Black residents. While outer suburbs tend to be more integrated today, the rate of change there has been more modest over the past two decades. Social scientists measure segregation using a tool called the 'dissimilarity index.' The index represents the proportion of one group that would need to move to establish an equal distribution of the population based on their relative numbers. It ranges from 0 to 100. A score of 0 means equal distribution across neighborhoods, while a score of 100 means the two groups live in completely separate areas. From 2000 to 2020, white-Black segregation across the region decreased from 84.4% to 68.3% on the index, while white-Hispanic segregation decreased from 47.6% to 39.9%. Together, these numbers indicate a broader trend toward more integrated living patterns. In the inner-ring suburbs, segregation fell across the board. White-Black segregation went down by 15.6%; white-Asian and white-Hispanic segregation dropped even more, by 43.2% and 30.7%, respectively. These trends suggest that while the outer suburbs currently have lower levels of segregation, the inner suburbs are integrating more rapidly, reflecting shifting patterns of neighborhood change and increasing racial and ethnic diversity.
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Census Bureau: Baltimore gains Hispanic residents, continues to lose Black population
Baltimore's slight population increase last year was driven by Hispanic residents, whose population increased by about 2,200, according to Census Bureau estimates released Thursday. The city is also estimated to have overall gained 700 Asian residents and about 500 people of two or more races. Baltimore's Black population continued its yearslong decline, however. While Baltimore gained 754 residents overall from July 2023 to July 2024, the number of Black residents fell by 0.8%, representing a 5% decline since the 2020 census. Prince George's, Talbot County and Worcester counties were the only other Maryland jurisdictions whose Black populations decreased. Baltimore's white population was virtually unchanged from last year, declining by 63 people, though it's down 4.4% since the 2020 census. Baltimore's overall population of 568,271 residents is down almost 3% since 2020. The latest estimates say the city is 59% Black, 27% white, 9% Hispanic, 3% Asian and 2% people of two or more races. The decrease in the Black population in Baltimore City is likely due to people leaving the city for suburban areas and natural population decline, or more deaths than births, said Michael Bader, the Director of the 21st Century Cities Initiative at Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore County's number of Black residents increased by 1.4% between July 2023 and July 2024. The county overall had the Baltimore region's largest increase in the proportion of residents who are nonwhite or Hispanic during that period, rising 0.87 percentage points to 49.5%. Conversely, Baltimore City had the state's smallest increase in the share of its population that's nonwhite, inching up 0.05 percentage points to 73.5%. Bader said that the increase in the Hispanic population in Baltimore City is likely due to immigration. 'People tend to move when they're younger, and when they're younger, they are also at ages where they have children,' Bader said. 'The combination of folks moving to economic centers in Baltimore and then having kids is probably what's leading to the growth of the Hispanic population in Baltimore.' With a median age of 39.7, Maryland skews older than the U.S. as a whole, which had a median age of 39.1, a record high. The country's median age has increased, University of Maryland Public Health Assistant Professor Hector Alcala said, due to increased improved life expectancies and people having fewer children. Bader said that many young people are unable to move to or stay in Maryland due to high costs of living and the state's housing shortage, which also may have contributed to the state's high median age. Baltimore City had the second-youngest median age of Maryland's 24 jurisdictions, at 36.5 years old. Most of the oldest counties by median age were on the Eastern Shore, with Worcester and Talbot County topping the list with a median age of more than 50 years. Children, under 18 years old, still outnumber older adults in Maryland, 65 years or older, despite the opposite being true for 11 states in 2024. Talbot County has the highest share of their population being older adults of any county, at 30.6%. Statewide, around 17.6% of the population was over 65. Most counties with high median ages were in Maryland's Eastern Shore, which Johns Hopkins Professor Odis Johnson says is because these areas are typically more affordable for people on retirement salaries. Trump administration policies are likely to affect the size and makeup of Maryland populations in the next few years, Bader and Alcala said. The Hispanic population, Bader said, may decrease due to immigration laws and ICE crackdowns making even authorized immigrants choosing not to move to Maryland. 'For a long time, the only reason that the state has not lost a whole bunch of people has been because of migration from people born outside the United States to the state,' Bader said. 'That's going to be a problem … the economic consequences of the policies of the federal government are going to hit Maryland pretty hard.' Alcala pointed to the cuts to the federal workforce, which he predicts will lead residents of counties surrounding Washington, D.C., and Baltimore to move to more affordable areas or leave altogether. Have a news tip? Contact Katharine Wilson at kwilson@
