White Population Shifting Decades-Long Trends in Cities

Emily Badger reports on the growing body of evidence that white population is growing in cities around the country, but perhaps most tellingly exemplified by Detroit, where in 2014 the city's white population grew by 8,000 people. "That's a relatively small number in a city of 680,000," writes Badger, "but it's a significant change from the long-term trend over the lifetime of a majority of residents living in Detroit today."

Badger calls on demographer William Frey, who also spotted the trend in other cities. As explained by Badger:

"Among the 50 largest cities in the U.S., nearly half gained a statistically significant number of whites from 2010-2014 (the change isn't significant in 21 of these 50 cities). Just 5 lost whites. That's compared to 35 cities where the white population shrank in the 2000s, and 31 in the 1990s. In Detroit, New Orleans, Washington and Denver, the white share of the population also rose over this same time."

Badger, with the help of Frey's take on the data, concludes with words of caution about the conclusions that should be drawn from the data.