Black Population Declines In Washington, DC
(Akiit.com) The District of Columbia’s black population continues to decline, a trend that might soon change the capital’s longtime majority-black status.
In 2000, blacks made up 60 percent of Washington’s population. But by 2006 that figure was 55 percent, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
During that time, the number of non-Hispanic black residents in the city declined 6 percent to 322,000. Non-Hispanic white residents increased 14 percent to about 184,000. The number of Asians increased to 18,000 — a 20 percent gain.
The demographics shift means Washington likely will cease to be majority-black by 2020, said Robert E. Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.
“It will wind up more like a Los Angeles or a New York, with no clear majority,” Lang told The Washington Post.
Some experts say the changes likely are attributed to gentrification and diminishing affordable housing.
“What you see are whites moving into the city because they are able to afford the pricey housing in all these areas that are gentrifying and becoming much more middle and upper-middle class,” said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.