Non-Hispanic Whites Are Now a Minority in the 23-County New York Region
For the first time, black, Hispanic and Asian residents of New York City and its suburbs are a majority of the metropolitan area’s more than 19 million residents, according to the 2010 census, released last week.
New York is the first major metropolitan area in the country outside the South or West in which non-Hispanic whites have become a minority of the population.
Some of the same dynamic that transformed New York into a majority-minority city in the 1980s also contributed to that benchmark in the 23 counties that make up the metropolitan area: New York’s five boroughs, as well as Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties, Fairfield County in Connecticut and 12 counties in New Jersey.
In 2000, the census found that non-Hispanic whites made up 54.3 percent of the area’s population. By 2010, their share had declined to 49.6 percent.
“It reflects the way the country is going; it’s becoming more diverse,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College of the City University of New York. “It’s America now.”
Still, despite the proliferation of other racial and ethnic groups, the New York City area grew the slowest, by 3.1 percent, of the 10 largest metropolitan areas.
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