African-Americans once were clustered so heavily in urban areas that the terms “Black” and “inner city” came to be used almost synonymously. According to the 2010 U.S. Census results, that time is history.
 
While Blacks have by no means vanished from cities, unprecedented numbers have headed for the suburbs or left the big cities of the North and headed south. As legislative districts are redrawn, nonpartisan groups and both political parties are watching how this unexpected migration will affect local and state elections.
 
Moreover, redistricting experts say the Black exodus from cities such as Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia contributed to placing Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania among the 10 states that will lose congressional seats because of reapportionment after the census. With Republican governors in 29 states, the GOP has greater influence over redistricting than Democrats.

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David Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C., doesn’t expect the Black population decrease to have a huge impact on the city’s political scene.
 
“By and large, white voters have almost always had a major say in D.C. politics, so the fact that D.C. is becoming less Black isn’t really changing the politics,” Bositis says. “The exception is Marion Barry. He was the only politician in D.C. who was able to win without white support.” The former mayor is a City Council member.
 
Nationally, Black movement away from cities will eventually give minorities more political clout in areas where they settle, Bositis says. He adds, though, that this phenomenon will take time because the black and Latino population is on average younger than the white population.

Read more at The Skanner.

African-Americans have migrated in significant numbers from the urban core to the suburbs and from large metropolitan parts of the North to the South in the past ten years. As states redraw political districts, the impact of their exodus is varied. Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania will each lose congressional seats. Lawmakers in some Republican-controlled states have created redistricting maps that dilute minority voting power by trying to concentrate African-Americans in a contained area so they can influence the outcome in as few districts as possible. In others, minorities claim the lines being drawn don’t accurately reflect the demographic shifts that in a fair process would result in more minority lawmakers.

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As David Bositis, senior research analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, told BET.com, “individually they have relatively little influence, but together they can accomplish a lot. And as the population change evolves, “they can in effect become the governing majority.”

Read more at BET.

Where are hundreds of thousands of African-American children that used to live in some of the nation’s largest cities?

The Associated Press reports that Census data shows that the number, and percentage, of Black children living in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans, as well as many other major urban areas, have been cascading downward for years.

Demographers say a number of factors are at play, such as increased use of birth control, but one may surprise. More young African-American couples have moved to the suburbs, for the usual reasons: more space, better schools and greater tranquility. That has reduced the number and percentage of black children in major cities, while the Black older population has remained steady.

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David Bositis, a senior researcher at the Black issue–oriented think tank, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and former Census Bureau demographer sees nothing wrong with the trend, and says cities will benefit.  "On one level, it is a big plus for the cities,” he told a reporter, “People without children are much cheaper than people with children. Especially young people. They are making very little in way of demands on city services."

Read more at BET.

A catastrophic flood emptied New Orleans of much of its black youth. Powerful social forces may be doing a similar thing to places like Harlem and Chicago's South Side.

Over the past decade, the inner-city neighborhoods that have served for generations as citadels of African-American life and culture have been steadily draining of black children.

Last year's census found that the number of black, non-Hispanic children living in New York City had fallen by 22.4 percent in 10 years. In raw numbers, that meant 127,058 fewer black kids living in the city of Jay Z and Spike Lee, even as the number of black adults grew slightly.

The same pattern has repeated from coast to coast. Los Angeles saw a 31.8 percent decline in its population of black children, far surpassing the 6.9 percent drop in black adults. The number of black children in Atlanta fell by 27 percent. It was down 31 percent in Chicago and 37.6 percent in Detroit. Oakland, Calif. saw a drop of 42.3 percent, an exodus that fell only 6 percentage points below the decline in flood-ravaged New Orleans.

Overall, the census found nearly a half-million fewer black children living in the 25 largest U.S. cities than there were a decade earlier. By comparison, the number of black adults living in big cities has hardly budged.

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"Face it: In a lot of suburbs, there was a distinct effort to keep blacks out," said David Bositis, a senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and former Census Bureau demographer.

Those barriers have now been falling, he said, opening the door for blacks to follow in the footsteps of white families who had their own diaspora to the suburbs after World War II.

"More African Americans are going to college. There were big income gains during the Clinton administration," Bositis said. "Now they are moving to the suburbs where they have better schools ... They don't want their children in inner-city schools."

Read more at Google News, The Chicago Tribune, CBS News,  The Washington Examiner, St. Petersburg Times, Macon.com, Daily Herald, WFSB, KFMB , The Seattle Times, Kansas City Star, Santa Cruz Sentinel, The Daily Tribune (Oakland) and mlive.com.

As U.S. Census figures roll out and states begin the politically charged process of redrawing state legislative maps, the politics of race is rising up as minority groups demand that their lawmakers look more like the communities they represent.

At issue is just how they do that and the two very different political approaches to promising minorities better representation in state Legislatures. One strategy concentrates minorities in a district, known as packing, the other dilutes them, often called cracking.

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Democrats and political watchers say there’s no question that packing is being pursued.

“It’s a national strategy,” said senior political analyst David A. Bositis at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C. “Democrats want to spread out minorities. Republicans want to create white districts, or ones with a small enough minority population that it won’t have an effect on the vote.”

Read more at the Sparta Independent.

Roderick J. Harrison, demographer and former Chief of Racial Statistics at the U.S. Census Bureau, discussed what the census results, which were released on Thursday, reveal about DC.

Read more at The Washington Post.

This edition of the Women of Color Health Data Book, prepared by the Joint Center for the National Institutes of Health, provides the most recent available information on different populations of women in the United States and represents a much desired update on the health of women of color. Originally published in 1997, and updated in 2002, this third edition of the Women of Color Health Data Book includes more information and updated statistics. The standards have been revised to include five minimum racial categories: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and white. This edition of the Women of Color Health Data Book continues to support recognition of the importance of women’s health and, more specifically, the role of culture, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic background, geographic location, and other social and economic factors as important contributors to health status. The expanded concepts of women’s health, and therefore research, focus on the study and understanding of women’s health as a reflection of the myriad of elements that contribute to the overall quality of women’s lives in the United States today.

Download this publication from the National Institutes of Health.

Testimony of Roderick Harrison, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies on July 10, 2008, before the Information Policy, Census and National Archives Subcommittee, Oversight and Government Reform Committee, U.S. House of Representatives.

Available in PDF Format Only.

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Date Published: July 2008
 

Significant groups of Americans remain unaware of the approaching 2000 Census, and among those who are aware, nearly half are not sure about the merits of statistical sampling according to the Joint Center's 1999 Opinion Poll. Those most likely to report being unaware of the census and the least likely to report seeing ads or being contacted about the census were low-income and less well educated persons - historically an undercounted population.

Among African American respondents, 27% of those earning less than $15,000 and 20% of those with less than a high school education had not seen any ads or been contacted. While the majority of respondents reported that they would participate in the 2000 Census, blacks younger than 36 years, and those with less than a high school education were the least likely to state that they would complete the census form. The survey findings also lend more support for President Clinton's and the Democrats' position on census sampling than for the Republican position.

Contact the Joint Center Regarding Availibility of This Publication.