Austin’s Austin’s African-American population is finally on the upswing, according to a Thursday Austin Monitor report—a positive development after at least a decade in which it declined significantly.
It’s been a much-cited statistic that Austin had recently become the only quickly growing city in the country to experience a net loss in African American residents. That trend held true for the years 2000-2010, city demographer Ryan Robinson told the Monitor.
The years from 2010 to present, however, saw an uptick in Austin’s black population; the Monitor reports that Robinson told to City Council members during a work session Tuesday that in the four years following the 2010 census, it increased by an estimated 8,000 within Austin city limits and by an estimated 20,000 in the metro area.
The Monitor elaborated that the figures are based on estimates from the annual American Community Survey and the margin of error for the estimate of the city’s total black population was +/- 2,036.
Still, the Monitor pointed out, the African-American share of the city’s overall population likely declined between 2010 to 2014, from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent; it was 12.4 percent in 1990.
The Monitor also noted that, while many attribute the movement of many African American Austinites to suburbs surrounding the city to Austin’s housing affordability crisis, Robinson holds that the biggest jump in housing prices took place in 2010, and that many people move to northern suburbs such as Pflugerville for bigger houses and better schools.
Robinson estimated that the city’s Asian population has likely risen since the same 2014 survey put at 6.6 percent, the Monitor reported, adding that the Latino population has remained relatively stable, estimated at 34.8 percent and that non-Hispanic whites make up 48.7 percent of the city.
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• Austin’s black population growing again [Austin Monitor]