Census and race: Detroit's Inner-ring suburbs gain diversity

[iheartthed]

I don't know what Augustiner considers the legitimate use of the word diversity but out here in Novi, the percentage of Asians increased to something like 20%, African-American to 8% and Hispanic to 3%. It's definitely not as lily-white a town as is used to be.

I think his point is that the demographics in the inner-rings appears to be in a period of transition. When I hear the word diversity applied to demographics I think of a stable mix of different races over an extended period of time. What seems to be happening in the inner-ring suburban neighborhoods is that the census caught a snap shot during a changeover from one predominant demographic to another. For instance, the 1960 census probably shows the Grandmont-Rosedale neighborhoods in Detroit to have been overwhelmingly white. The 1970 census probably showed that area to be racially mixed. And the 1980 census probably showed it to be overwhelmingly black.