Census Report: How Does Clayton Compare?

The 2010 census data released last week paints a picture of shifting racial trends in the past decade, with Contra Costa County, Alameda County and Solano County all seeing Asian and Hispanic populations continue to rise.

The three counties have added more than 150,000 Asians to the demographic profile of the East Bay since 2000 — a growth of 35 percent.

The Hispanic population saw a similar increase of 35 percent, with a growth of more than 180,000 people in the past decade.

Bucking the trends, Clayton remain similar to the 2000 levels. Of the 10,897 people in the city, 85.1 percent are white; in 2000, 87.9 percent were white. The second largest group are Hispanics, which make up 9 percent and Asians account for 6.6 percent.

Blacks makeup 1.3 percent of Clayton's population.

But the in the East Bay, the white population saw the largest decline across the three counties, dropping by 73,000 people or 4.7 percent.

Contra Costa County experienced the most significant decline, with 6.9 percent of the white population dwindling since 2000. Alameda County followed with a decline of 5.8 percent. The reduction since 2000 brings the white population to under 50 percent across Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano Counties.

Cities in the East Bay that lost more than 10 percent of their white population include San Ramon at 23.2 percent, Dublin at 18.1 percent, San Lorenzo at 15.9 percent, San Leandro at 13.7 and Pleasanton at 13.4 percent.

“What we seem to be seeing in California is that the decreases in the non-Hispanic white population are almost exclusively driven by net migration,” said Stiles.

White Californians are leaving the state, although their destinations remain unclear.

Also experiencing a decline, the African American population dropped by 4 percent from 2000 levels across the three counties — a loss totalling nearly 15,000 people.

The fluctuation takes the total African American population across Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano Counties combined from 13 percent to 11.7 percent. While most East Bay cities saw small increases in the African American population, the largest losses were concentrated in a handful of places.

People identifying themselves as a mixture of two races or more grew in California in the past decade, doubling from 2.5 percent to 4.9 percent.

“There are simply increases in the number of inter-racial marriages, unions and children,” explained Stiles.

The East Bay lagged slightly behind the state trend, with the mixed race population in Alameda County, Contra Costa County and Solano County rising by between 0.4 percent and 1.2 percent.

Stiles, however, also noted that the multiple races category of the U.S. Census is open to interpretation, and therefore renders varying results.

“President Obama, for example, filled out his census form as 'Black,' not inter-racial,” said Stiles.