White and Black Populations Decline in East Bay, Hispanic and Asian Rise

The 2010 census data released last week paints a picture of shifting racial trends in the past decade, with Alameda County, Contra Costa 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.

San Lorenzo increased its Hispanic population by 13 percent. Concord experienced a growth of 8.8 percent, While San Leandro saw an increase of 7.3 percent.

Jon Stiles, executive director of the California Census Research Data Center, says that almost all of the growth in the Hispanic population is due to increases in the number of births relative to deaths.

“The Hispanic population tends to be a younger population with higher fertility rates,” said Stiles. By comparison, only about one-fifth of the growth of the Asian population is due to natural increases. The remainder is due to migration, said Stiles.

The white population, meanwhile, 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. One of the most significant declines in the African-American population was in Richmond, which saw a drop of 9.5 percent.

Oakland followed closely behind, with a decline of 7.7 percent of its black population, while Berkeley dropped 3.6 percent.

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.

*Clarification: This data was originally published in a chart that listed "Hispanic" under the category of race. It has now been updated to reflect ethnicity.

The data used by Patch.com from the U.S. Census Bureau for race includes people who identify themselves as of Hispanic origin. As explained by the U.S. Census Bureau, "the federal government considers race and Hispanic origin to be two separate and distinct concepts." Therefore, "Hispanic and Latinos may be of any race." For information on the racial breakdown of the non-Hispanic population, see the American Fact Finder "Hispanic or Latino and Race" chart under the "not Hispanic or Latino" topic category.