21 February 2012

Who's Fleeing Whom?

Michigan's largest city, Detroit, has been in the news of late due to its imminent bankruptcy and takeover  by the state.  We have considered its demise (as have others) in light of dysfunctional Afro governance and a misbehaving Afro populace (83% of the citizenry).

Though Afro criminality in North America has always surpassed that of Euros, and the latter have known it, separating oneself from Black neighbors was not difficult for the first 350 years of British North America / the United States.  Even in the North, segregation in housing was permitted de facto where it was not de jure.

The 'Great Migration,' waves of Afros moving from the South to the North, began in earnest in 1910, with its second wave after WWII (1945).

However, the flight of Euro-Americans out of the cities did not truly begin until Blacks were free to live where they pleased-- the 1960s.  Since then, a sort of merry-go-round has ensued:  Whites, suffering under Afro dysfunction, flee to suburbs, only to be pursued by the Talented Tenth fleeing same.  The latter are followed, as night follows day,  by the Untalented Nine-Tenths, who promptly re-create the urban hellscapes they left behind. Euro-Americans are forced to pack up, and the musical chairs begin again.  Section 8 vouchers have revved this carousel up to warp speed.

Instructive, perhaps, to watch the flight unfold before our eyes via U.S. Census numbers.

We give the figures from 1960, just before Segregation ended. We then fast-forward twenty years to 1980 to see what the first wave of 'White Flight' has wrought.  Finally, we give the most recent figures (2010), which contain some surprises, especially re: Hispanics, who did not even exist as a census category two generations ago.  For selected cities, we have also given the figures from 1910, before the Great Migration got underway.  Asians have been included where their historic presence has been strongest.

So: Who's fleeing whom?

We start with the Midwest, industrial center and destination of choice for the Great Migrators:

Detroit       White   Black   Hispanic
2010             7.8     82.7     6.8
1980           33.4     63.1     2.4
1960           70.8     28.9     n/a

1910           98.7       1.2     n/a

(Detroit is the largest American city to be over 80% Afro.)

Cleveland       White     Black   Hispanic
2010                33.4      53.3    10.0
1980                52.3      43.8      3.1
1960                71.1      28.6      n/a

1910                98.4      1.5       n/a

Chicago    White   Black    Hispanic
2010           31.7      32.9       28.9
1980           43.2      39.8       14.0
1960           76.4      22.9       n/a

1910           97.9       2.0       n/a

Milwaukee    White     Black   Hispanic
2010              37.0      40.0    17.3
1980              71.3       23.1      4.1
1960              91.1        8.4       n/a

1910              99.7        0.3       n/a

(Chicago and Milwaukee appear, say some observers, to be reaching some sort of tipping point.)

Indianapolis     White     Black   Hispanic
2010                  81.5      9.1       6.0
2010                  58.6     27.5      9.4
1980                  76.6     21.8      0.9
1960                  79.3     20.6      n/a

1910                  90.6       9.3      n/a

(A surprisingly ethnic-Euro large city in this region.)

St. Louis        White     Black   Hispanic
2010                42.2        49.2    3.5
1980                52.8        45.6    1.2
1960                71.2        21.6    n/a

1910                93.5        6.4     n/a

Kansas City (MO) White     Black   Hispanic
2010                      54.9        29.9     10.0
1980                      68.1        27.4       3.3
1960                      82.3        17.5       n/a

1910                       90.5        9.5       n/a

Des Moines     White    Black   Hispanic
2010                 70.5     10.2     12.0
1980                 89.4       6.8       1.8
1960                 94.9       4.9       n/a

1910                 96.6       3.4       n/a

Minneapolis    White   Black   Hispanic
2010                60.3     18.6      10.5
1980                86.7       7.7        1.3
1960                96.8       2.4        n/a

1910                99.1       0.9        n/a

(Des Moines and Minneapolis, two reputed 'Whitopias.' Will they stay so?)

The great cities of the East Coast tell us their demographic story:

New York City    White     Black   Hispanic
2010                      33.3      25.5      28.6
1980                      51.9      25.2      19.9
1960                      85.3      14.4       n/a

1910                      98.0        1.9       n/a

(A gentrifying trend in the Big Apple?)

Philadelphia    White     Black   Hispanic
2010                 36.9       43.4      12.3
1980                 58.2       37.8        3.8
1960                 73.3       26.4       n/a

1910                 94.5         5.5        n/a

(Some argue a tipping point has been reached in Philadelphia as well.)

Newark    White   Black   Hispanic
2010          11.6     52.4      33.8
1980          22.1     34.1      18.6
1960          65.6     17.1      n/a

1910          97.2       2.7      n/a

(One of the least-white big cities in the nation.)

Boston      White   Black   Hispanic
2010          47.0     24.4      17.5
1980          67.9     22.4        6.4
1960          90.2       9.1        n/a

1910          97.8       2.0       n/a

Baltimore  White    Black    Hispanic
2010           28.0       63.7        4.2
1980           43.4      54.8        1.0  
1960           65.0      34.7        n/a

1910           84.8      15.2        n/a

(Baltimore's reputation precedes her; Mencken's city is long gone.)

Washington, D.C.     White     Black   Hispanic
2010                           34.8        50.7     9.1  
1980                           25.7        70.3     2.8
1960                           45.2        53.9     n/a

1910                           71.3        28.5     n/a

(Another city where Euros are coming back?)

We've included two far north-eastern cities, considered some of the 'whitest' in the country.  Will these enclaves stay that way?

Burlington, VT     White     Black   Hispanic
2010                      94.3       1.0       1.5
1980                      97.9       0.6       0.8
1960                      99.6       0.3       n/a

Portland, ME     White     Black   Hispanic
2010                     83.6        7.1       3.0
1980                     97.6        0.9       0.6
1960                     99.4        0.5       n/a

The South has lived a different racial story since colonial times.  Home to plantation slavery and thus to most of the U.S.'s Blacks before 1910, she lost millions in the following decades to the industrial centers of the North.

Atlanta   White     Black   Hispanic
2010        36.3          54.0       5.2  
1980        31.9          66.6       1.4  
1960        61.7          38.3       n/a

1910        66.4          33.5       n/a

(Paul Kersey has well covered the racial merry-go-round between city and suburbs in this 'city too busy to hate.')

Charlotte      White     Black   Hispanic
2010               45.1      35.0    13.1
1980               66.9      31.0       1.1  
1960               72.0      27.9       n/a

1910               65.4      35.6       n/a

Memphis     White     Black   Hispanic
2010             27.5        63.3    6.5      
1980             51.3        47.6    0.8  
1960             62.9        37.0     n/a

1910             59.9        40.0     n/a

Nashville     White     Black   Hispanic
2010               56.3      28.4    10.0      
1980               75.2      23.3      0.8  
1960               62.1      37.8      n/a

1910               66.9      33.1      n/a

(The demographic [and crime] differences between the above two Tennessee cities have been remarked upon.)

Birmingham     White    Black   Hispanic
2010                   21.1        73.4      3.6
1980                   43.6        55.6      0.8
1960                   60.3        39.6      n/a

1910                   60.6        39.4      n/a

(Birmingham is currently undergoing the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.)

New Orleans     White     Black   Hispanic
2010                   30.5        60.2        5.2
1980                   40.3        55.3        3.4
1960                   62.6        37.2        n/a

1910                   73.6        26.3        n/a

(New Orleans' racial history is unique in the nation, do read up on its old 'creole' [mulatto] caste, which lived a separate life from the 'Negro' masses.)

Miami        White     Black   Hispanic
2010             11.9      19.2     70.0  
1980             19.4      25.1     55.9
1960             77.4      22.4      n/a

1910             58.7      41.3      n/a

(The white Spanish Cubans who make up so much of this city--'Hispanic' in the same way as the Mestizo Mexicans pouring over our southern border?)

Home to some of the last real 'Whitopias' in the country, the Great Basin states are nonethless diversifying in their way:

Omaha     White     Black   Hispanic
2010          68.0      13.7     13.1  
1980          84.3      12.0       2.3  
1960          91.3        8.3       n/a

1910          96.4        3.6       n/a

Billings, MT    White     Black   Hispanic
2010                 86.9       0.8       5.2  
1980                 93.7       0.4       3.1  
1960                 98.8       0.4       n/a

Boise     White     Black   Hispanic
2010       85.2         1.5      7.1  
1980       96.8         0.5      2.3  
1960       98.9         0.6      n/a

Salt Lake City     White     Black   Hispanic
2010                    80.4          1.1          13.0
1980                    86.4          1.5           7.6   
1960                    97.9          0.8           n/a

Denver      White     Black   Hispanic
2010           52.2       10.2     31.8  
1980           66.3       12.0     18.8     
1960           92.9         6.1       n/a

1910           97.0         2.5       n/a

(How far will the hispanifying of Denver go?)

The Southwest is of course under demographic pressure from Latin America.  This region lives its own story, with parts of Anglo-America perhaps already extinct here.  (As the 'Hispanic' census category did not exist then, all pre-1980 'White' figures must be assumed to contain Hispanic presence.)

Dallas    White     Black   Hispanic
2010       28.8        25.0     42.4  
1980       56.9        29.4     12.3  
1960       80.7        19.0       n/a

1910       80.4        19.6       n/a

Houston     White     Black   Hispanic
2010             25.6      23.7     43.8  
1980             52.3      27.6     17.6  
1960             76.8      22.9      n/a

1910             69.6      30.4      n/a

Albuquerque     White     Black   Hispanic
2010                   42.1        3.3       46.7   
1980                   60.1        2.5       33.8
1960                   97.1        0.8        n/a

1910                   97.4        2.2        n/a

Phoenix     White     Black   Hispanic
2010           46.5         6.5      40.8  
1980           78.1         4.8      14.8
1960           94.2         4.8       n/a

1910           95.3         2.9       n/a

Las Vegas           White     Black   Hispanic
2010                     47.9       11.1     31.5  
1980                     76.5       12.8       7.8
1960                     84.2       15.0       n/a

1940 (1910 n/a)    97.3         2.0       n/a

The West Coast is home to a centuries-old Asian presence which seems to have jumped after the 1965 Immigration Act.  What will be the fallout if current trends continue?

Los Angeles     White     Black   Hispanic   Asian
2010                 28.7         9.6       48.5        11.3
1980                 47.8       17.0       27.5          6.6
1960                 83.2       13.5        n/a          3.0

1910                 95.6         2.4        n/a          1.9

(Will the ethnic cleansing of L.A.'s Blacks by its Hispanic gangs continue apace?)

San Francisco     White     Black   Hispanic   Asian
2010                     41.9          6.1      15.1         33.3
1980                     52.3        12.7      12.3         21.7  
1960                     81.6        10.0       n/a          7.9

1910                     95.9          0.4        n/a         3.6

San Jose     White     Black   Hispanic   Asian
2010             28.7       3.2       33.2       32.0
1980             63.8       4.6       22.3         8.3      
1960             96.7       1.0        n/a         2.1

1910             96.9     0.6        n/a            2.4

(San Francisco and San Jose: Headed for a Euro-Asian overclass and an Afro-Hispanic underclass?)

Oakland     White     Black   Hispanic   Asian
2010             25.9      28.0     25.4        16.8
1980             34.8      46.9       9.6          7.8
1960             73.6      22.8        n/a         3.2

1910             94.5        2.0        n/a         3.4

Portland     White     Black   Hispanic  Asian
2010             72.2       6.3       9.4          7.1
1980             85.3       7.6       2.1          2.9      
1960             94.4       4.2       n/a         1.1

1910             96.0       0.5       n/a         3.5

Seattle     White     Black   Hispanic  Asian
2010          66.3      7.9       6.6           13.8
1980          78.4      9.5       2.6             7.4  
1960          91.6      4.8        n/a            3.1

1910          96.0      1.0        n/a           3.0

A nation is not a stretch of ground; it's a people.  The demography of the urban U.S. is changing faster than it ever has.  Housing policy, criminal justice, immigration policy have all brought us here. Will the face of the nation change irrevocably in this century?


Greying Wanderer said...

"A gentrifying trend in the Big Apple?"

That's really what zero tolerance was about - pushing out the black population.

M.G. said...

Definitely. George L. Kelling (the 'Broken Windows' theory guy) did a decent write-up on this in the City Journal. It does tend to push out those least able to function civilly. But not every city has the stomach (or the funds) for it.

Heliogabalus said...

2 points, re: Chicago and New York:

1. A "tipping point" for Chicago in the works? But both the white and black populations there are in numerical decline, while the Hispanic and Asian populations are rising. And to complicate things even more, the black population is in the steepest decline, while the white population has become more affluent and yuppified while the old white working class vanishes. I don't see any tipping point here.

2. Your stats for NY look wrong: all figures I've seen give the non-Hispanic white population at only around 35% (i.e. similar to Chicago). Are you using only Manhattan figures?

M.G. said...

Your stats for NY look wrong:

And they are. I managed to transpose city and state figures; the corrected ones give quite a different picture. Ditto Atlanta. Thank you for the correction, and mea culpa

I don't see any tipping point here.

Tipping point in terms of liveability. Some argue that when the non-NAM/NAM ratio in a city reaches a certain point, liveability declines. Absolute numbers don't matter; relative ones do. The relative numbers of Euro-descended in Chicago have fallen steadily since 1910; precipitously since 1960.


Yes, that is the entire point. Only the very wealthiest whites can afford to barricade themselves in properly in a city that has 'tipped'. Rio de Janeiro has 'affluent and yuppified' ethnic Iberians living behind twenty-foot walls and being driven around in bullet-proof SUVs; that doesn't mean the city is safe or liveable.

Heliogabalus said...

M.G. - regarding the NAM/non-NAM ratio, let me just throw out a couple of ideas.

I think the real factor that people worry about is number of blacks specifically. Hispanics (who are also "NAMs") are an extremely varied population, and while as a totality have higher crime and dysfunction rates than whites, they still do much better than blacks on the whole and are less threatening to whites. (Example: the safest large city in the US is heavily Hispanic El Paso, according to stats I've seen. Can you imagine a mostly black city with that characteristic?)

Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago suffer from gang violence and low educational attainment. But they also have a high level of business activity, entrepreneurship and strong social institutions, totally unlike black ghetto hellhole neighborhoods. And violence tends to stay within the community: there's nothing like the B-on-W violence or hate crimes that plague many cities and promote white flight.

So, even though there are both more whites AND blacks in cities like Philadelphia and Cleveland, I would argue that Chicago is more livable and stable, partly because of the existence of a Hispanic (and slightly Asian) "buffer" between whites and blacks.

Greying Wanderer said...

"the corrected ones give quite a different picture."



"the number of black New Yorkers has declined, by 5 percent since 2000. Non-Hispanic blacks now account for 23 percent of New Yorkers"

They may be playing with the categories to muddy what's happened.

"But not every city has the stomach (or the funds) for it."

Or the media aircover. If a whitopia in the south was harassing black people into leaving it would be all over the MSM but places like New York, LA and more recently Washington can get away with it.

The crime doesn't disappear but it is displaced so the cities which have the media aircover get less crime and somewhere else gets more.

M.G. said...



Your point on Hispanics is well-taken, and I agree it's one that deserves to be nuanced and not glossed over. Forced to choose, I think most Euro-Americans would live near Hispanics before Afros, and Eric Fischer's census maps seem to bear that out. (Blue areas--Afro--are mostly solid blue, whereas yellow dots [Hispanic] and reds [Euros] mix more easily.)

Many whites' complaints about Hispanic neighborhoods tend to revolve around lesser quality-of-life issues-- a bigger tolerance for graffiti, litter, etc, that lower property values. But again, tough to compare the uppercrust Spanish-blood Cuban refugees in Miami with Central American gangbangers in L.A., or the Amerindian Mestizo immigrants pouring in today with the old-line Spanish-descent Tejanos who've been in Texas for generations.

This is why the demographic changes to the Southwest interest and mystify me: What will these cities look like in ten, twenty, fifty years? Who can tell us?

As for Chicago, it does seem the 1/3 White--1/3 Black--1/3 Hispanic (roughly) balance has been holding steady, and the city hasn't descended into an urban apocalypse. Still, the fact that so many cops who are forced to live in the city would leave for the suburbs in a heartbeat if they could may tell us something about just how bad the white working class is getting squeezed out there.

M.G. said...

Greying Wanderer-
The White Flight seems to have levelled off:

Percent non-Hispanic Whites in NYC


From the article:

"Manhattan and Brooklyn accounted for the only counties in the country with a million or more people where the white share of the population rose."

Still seems gentrification is continuing apace in NYC. And yes, the media cover was essential. Not in my backyard, heavens no.

Heliogabalus said...

MG, sheer size appears to help stability and sustainability. NY, LA and Chicago are not very white percentage-wise, but they are large enough that each is able to contain a large white city within the metropolis. The size and wealth of that "white city" ensure its viability, at least for the foreseeable.

Greying Wanderer said...

"The White Flight seems to have levelled off:"

Yes, that's the point. Driving out the worst black neighborhoods and replacing them with hispanics and asians lowers the overall crime rate.

One of the main areas of focus was/is clearing black people out of Manhattan i.e. Harlem - which for obvious reasons includes more white incomers and not just asian/hispanic.


"Between 1990 and 2006 the neighborhood's population grew by 16.9%, with the percentage of blacks decreasing from 87.6% to 69.3%,[51] then dropping to 54.4% by 2010,[104] and the percentage of whites increasing from 1.5% to 6.6% by 2006,[51] and to "almost 10%" by 2010"

"Harlem began to see rapid gentrification in the late 1990s. This was driven by changing federal and city policies, including fierce crime-fighting"

It's basically the elites making *their* towns safer.

Hail said...

Greying Wanderer wrote:

Ironically, in both cases the gentrification was led by childless young white "yuppies" (disproportionately homosexual and Jewish [just sayin'..]). The 'advance guard of gentrification', we could say. This group is almost as heavily 'Left' in voting patterns as the Blacks themselves are. (If a yuppie does not vote Democrat, he may vote Green, or whatever else, but rarely anything to the right of the Democrats).

The yuppies are also, of course, strongly pro-Black in attitude (See many of the SWPL entries). Ironic, indeed!

Hail said...

MG wrote:
"% non-Hispanic White NYC

I don't know for certain the number of Jews in New York City, but some online sources are saying there are about a million (of 8.5 million total).

So, of the 33.3% NYCers who are White, probably over one-third of them are Jewish. Further subtracting any White-Muslims that may be included, the total NYC population may well be under 20% White-Christian! A good share of those will be Italian, Irish, and so on. One wonders if there are any White-Protestants left in the city. That, too, is a story of 'Flight', going back to the Ellis Island waves, or perhaps starting circa 1850 after the first Irish-Catholic wave.

The transformation of Yankeeland, the American Northeast, by the Ellis Island waves from southern and eastern Europe, is perhaps even more significant, in certain ways, than the transformation of the northeast's inner cities into Black zones.

Hail said...

Indianapolis Black Share
2010 9.1%
1980 21.8%

How/why did this happen? Indianapolis does not strike me as a 'gentrifying' place, but then I don't know much about that city.

M.G. said...


Indeed, though I don't hear it talked about much today in HBD circles. We've looked here before at J.R. Commons' Races and Immigrants In America, written when 'turn off the tap' sentiment was gathering strength (but before the 1924 Act was passed).


This one's a mystery to me. Have they all headed up to Gary?

Gary, IN.....White.....Black.....Hispanic




Perhaps an Indy-ite could enlighten us.

Heliogabalus said...

Speaking of Gary, Newark and similar cities: it would be interesting to investigate the characteristics and culture of the small white minorities that remain in such heavily black cities. I wonder how they cope sometimes, why they haven't moved, what survival strategies they adopted, and so forth.

I know that Gary elected a white mayor back in the 90s. One thing I remember is that he had to go to some length to show he was "down with the brothas" (he had a black wife and other black cultural features as I recall).

Hail said...

On Indianapolis: Maybe it would help to see the actual numbers, not just the percentages. (This could apply to all cities).

There would be a big difference between a dramatic Black outmigration and simply heavy Non-Black in-migration, with all the Blacks staying place, but now a lower % of pop.

Are there actually far fewer Blacks in Indianapolis in 2010 as in 1980?

New York City, in the 1800s, saw dramatic Black out-migration, as detailed here.

NYC Whites
1820: 113,000
1870: 929,000
=3.03 doublings

NYC Blacks
1820: 11,000
1870: 13,000
=0.18 doublings

Considering TFRs of that time, only dramatic outmigration by Blacks could explain their numerical stagnation.

M.G. said...

Inexcusably, I have also transposed Indianapolis's figures with those of Indiana. (Inspiring me to re-check all numbers with a fine-toothed comb, the rest are OK.) 2010 white percentage is 58.6, black is 27.5, which is more in line with what I would have expected. Unlike many midwest cities though, looks like Indy's 'white flight' didn't take off in the sixties but later in the eighties.

Although this also points up what you've talked about at your blog, Hail--that NAMs in the U.S. are overwhelmingly urban, and the rural areas still very strongly ethnic-Euro. (ethnic northern-Euro?)


I've heard anecdotally about older white residents who've paid off homes but have only modest pensions and couldn't take the financial hit selling the house at its newly plummeted value. Also a lot of these older residents are set in their ways, don't want to leave, or truly have nowhere to go they can afford (and/or no family left).

Hail said...

"older residents"

I've heard that, too. It still seems odd, to me, that these people's families would allow them to live out their lives in such pathetic circumstances.

Can we quantify this? The Census breaks down city populations by age-group, but do they do it by age and race?

It would be useful to figure out what the share of school-age White children live in Newark, Gary, etc.

Hail said...

Shocking 'White Flight' factoid:

There are the same number of Whites living in Washington, DC in 2012 as there were when Teddy Roosevelt was president, ~110 years ago

Whites in Washington DC
1890: 154,695
1900: 191,532
1910: 236,128
~~~~ ("Various things happened")
2000: 159,178
2011: 215,000 [non-Hisp.]

Historical Data here.

Washington DC went from ~70% White in the years straddling WWI to ~70% Black by the 1970s. Gentrification has pushed the Black share down to ~50%, but it is young-adults driving the change. The number of White elementary school students in DC Public Schools is probably still near nil.

M.G. said...


This is a powerful way to present the data. You inspired me to look at the most extreme big-city example I know of, Detroit, and as it happens one must go back to Lincoln's day to match the current Euro population:

Whites in Detroit: (Non-Hispanic numbers given from 1980 on)

1860: 44,216
1870: 77,338
1880: 113,475
1950: 1,545,847 (high water mark)
1960: 1,182,970
1970: 838,877
1980: 402,077
1990: 212,278
2000: 99,921
2010: 55,674

How low will it go? Will Detroit be the first major American city to be effectively depopulated of Whites? A historic first. I keep waiting for an elephant in the room so big that HBD will be forced to go mainstream. 'Surely the implosion of black-run South Africa,' I once thought, but that seems to be occurring under a Western press black-out. Will Detroit do it?

Hail said...

Those are harrowing numbers for Detroit.

To contrast with Washington:
-- There was always a sizeable Black minority in and around Washington, DC.
-- Blacks were one percent of the population of Detroit when Wilson was elected (1912), according to your link.

Anonymous said...


In terms of quantity of attacks the majority of victims of inter-racial violence are teenagers simply because they're mostly on foot so it's people with young teenage children who move first then other parents as their kids hit that age too.

The ones left behind are elderly who don't want to leave because their home and memories are there. The gangs, which are effectively ethnic militias, don't get up early so elderly people can get by through only going out in the mornings and staying inside the rest of the time.

The non-elderly are those where the parents have something wrong with them, low IQ, drink, drugs etc so they're incapable of saving the money needed to leave. Their kids are the biggest victims. They have to go to school so can't hide at home and so they camouflage themselves as much as possible by adopting the culture of whatever group is ethnically cleansing them.

premiseblog said...

Everyone says there is this RACE problem.
The problem is we don't understand the CARS.

Heliogabalus said...


Some evidence for this from Gary's only white-majority neighborhood:

"Black Oak is the only neighborhood in Gary where mobile homes make up a significant fraction of total housing"

"Poverty levels in Black Oak are similar to Gary as a whole" (would be interesting to know how crime levels compare)


rjp said...

Chicago shipped many of ours away when they tore down the projects, otherwise we would would probably be a black dominant city by now.

Lakefront living in secure highrises is always going remain an attraction for whites here, which will keep it from becoming a complete Detroit I believe, a river just isn't the same thing.

Jack Fitzgerald said...

There are some Europeans left but a significant, possibly majority percentage of the "white" population of Detroit in 2010 was Arab.







M.G. said...

Jack F.--
Thank you for the links, very interesting, especially the two PDF docs with the detailed population breakdowns (this one and this one). I notice the info. is from 2000, giving just under 1% Arab population for Detroit (but 30% for Dearborn! Wow). I'd be very curious to see the 2010 numbers for Detroit proper, but (a) I can't find them and (b) apparently there is an undercounting problem with the U.S Census? From this 2010 article:

The Census Bureau says it doesn't matter if Arab Americans write their race in on their Census questionnaire. Even if they check the 'other' box and write in 'Arab,' as many community groups advocate, the Census will still count them as racially white.

Advocates say the Census Bureau undercounts the number of Arab Americans in part because the group has no racial box. The 2000 Census counted 1.24 million Arabs in the United States, while the Arab American Institute estimates the total Arab population is closer to 4 million.

That's a huge difference. But either way, as you say, it does seem likely a good chunk of the 'white' population in Detroit is in fact Arab. It would just be nice to know precisely how big a chunk--if the above activists have their way, the 2020 census will tell us.

Anonymous said...

Indiananapolis is different from the other cities on this list because of its unique city-county system. Around 1970, the city annexed all of surrounding Marion County -- in essence, it annexed all of its (predominantly white) suburbs, since the vast majority of its suburbs were within Marion County. (The suburban growth in Hamilton County is a relatively recent phenomenon.) Today much of the "city" outside Center Township retains its suburban character and consequently, much of its circa 1970 demographics...