Changing Racial Demographics on Your Block: A Map

There is an amazing website Urban Research Maps that lets you see how racial demographics have changed on a block level over the past ten years - between the 2000 and 2010 census.

It has data for only part of the United States, but this data includes PA, NY and several other major states.

My neighborhood in 2000







My neighborhood in 2010

Legend
Blue - Whites
Brownish Orange - Blacks
Pink - Asians

You can see that the number of white people in my neighborhood has increased dramatically over the past ten years. The boundary between the majority white area and majority black area has moved approximately two blocks to the west.

My neighborhood is gentrifying due to the influence of several universities (University of Pennsylvania, Drexel, and the University of Sciences) and the UPenn Hospital that provide middle and upper middle class jobs. There is also a strong demand for middle and upper-middle class housing for students. This is causing an influx of Whites and Asians. Housing prices are increasing and pushing out lower and middle income families who are primarily Black (and a smaller number of Hispanics).

A more positive effect is that there appears to be desegregation throughout Philadelphia and other cities. A lot of blocks that were previously 99-100% white or 99-100% black are now slowly integrating (and may now be "only" 90-97% white or 90-97% black). It is slow progress, but if it continues it could help reduce racism over the coming decades.

My block went from 127 Black / 61 White in 2000, to 105 White / 77 Black in 2010. The Asian population increased from 3 to 8, Hispanic fell from 15 to 7, and Other increased from 2 to 7.

Many of the blocks in my neighborhood that had no White people living on them in 2000, now tend to have at least one White person. I think a similar effect is happening in blocks that didn't have a single Black resident in 2000.