Patterns in the Spatial Distribution of African-American
and Foreign-Born Populations, 1930-2000
Three map animations show how African American and foreign-born population concentrations in US counties have changed over the period of the last eight censuses.
Counties with high proportions of African-American residents (>50%) remain concentrated in Southern states throughout the time period; however there is some dispersion into Northern and Western states between 1930 and 2000. Increases are especially noticeable in Chicago, counties in Southern California, and urban areas of the Northeast. The number of counties with over fifty percent black also decline over the time period.
In 1930 the foreign-born population of the United States was significant, and concentrated largely in counties in states along the northern border, and in the west. There were virtually no immigrants in the South, with the exception of Florida. In the 1960’s and 1970’s the foreign-born population declines rapidly to less than 5% in most counties, except for those in major gateway cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, and some counties along the borders. This decline most likely reflects the passing of the generation of immigrants that entered the country in the early decades of 20th century when immigration was at its height, before the Quota Acts of the 1920’s capped immigration. After 1970 concentrations of foreign-born start to increase, especially in counties along the southern border with Mexico, reflecting the impacts of the 1965 Immigration Act that abolished the quotas.
Counties with a significant (>10%) presence of foreign-born population rarely overlap with those that have significant Black populations. The two populations have almost completely opposite spatial distributions. Miami-Dade, and several other counties in Florida, as well as Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and parts of the San Francisco Bay Area are the only counties with overlap for most of the time period. The 2000 census shows that there are increasing numbers of counties that have high population concentrations of bother immigrants and African Americans, possibly predicting increasing convergence of these populations. This is especially true in urban areas, and may indicate that foreign-born populations are increasingly following jobs into the South.
Map color schemes inspired by Color Brewer http://www.personal.psu.edu/cab38/ColorBrewer/ColorBrewer.html