New Orleans’ landscape is getting less Black
20th September 2021 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Writer
If the current rate of in-migration continues, Orleans Parish will no longer enjoy an African-American majority inside of the next 10 years. The rate of increase of Caucasians, Hispanics, Asians and other racial groups has far outpaced the growth of African Americans in the city in the years following Hurricane Katrina, according to the New Orleans Data Center.
For example, Caucasians now constitute 32 percent of the Orleans Parish population, a net growth of over two percent. Over the last decade, the number of Hispanics in the city jumped by three percentage points to eight percent, and the multiracial category grew by nearly two percentage points, though some of these may have been people who identified as one race previously.
Nevertheless, explained Data Center Director Allison Plyer, while the numbers of African Americans in the city did increase from 2005 to 2020, “The growth in the Black population of New Orleans was eclipsed by other groups, as such, the share of New Orleans that is African American fell to 54 percent.”
It doesn’t mean that every part of the city lost its African-American supermajority. In 17 neighborhoods, the population remains over 80 percent Black. Those areas include the B.W. Cooper Apts., Desire, Dillard, Dixon, Fischer Development, Florida Area, Florida Development, Hollygrove, Iberville, Little Woods, Lower Ninth Ward, Pines Village, Plum Orchard, Pontchartrain Park, Read Blvd West, St. Bernard Area, and West Lake Forest.
The Data Center did note a decrease in the share of population
which identifies as African American in several other historically Black neighborhoods, yet these areas still maintain at least a 60 percent African-American majority. These areas include Behrman and U.S. Naval Support Area (where the African-American population declined while the Hispanic population grew substantially); Gentilly Terrace, McDonogh, Seventh Ward, St. Claude, St. Roch, St. Thomas Development, and Whitney (where the Black population declined while the white and Hispanic populations grew substantially); Viavant/Venetian Isles (where the African-American population grew but the Hispanic population grew faster, such that the Black share of the population shrank); Read Boulevard East (where the African-American population grew but the Asian population grew faster such that the Black share of the population shrank); Central City, Gert Town, Holy Cross, Milneburg, St. Anthony, and Tremé/Lafitte (where the African-American population grew but the white and Hispanic populations grew faster, such that the Black share shrank over the decade).
More reflective of New Orleans as a whole, the Filmore neighborhood saw the Black population increase, but white and Hispanic populations grew faster to the extent that the share of the African-American population fell to 52 percent. Likewise in Fairgrounds, Freret, and Leonidas, the share of the Black population fell to below 60 percent, and in Broadmoor, Mid-City, and Milan, it fell to below 50 percent, as the White and Hispanic populations grew substantially in all these neighborhoods. Only in Gentilly Woods, Lake Terrace & Lake Oaks, Old Aurora, and Tall Timbers/Brechtel did the share of Black population grow faster than any other ethnic group.
Overall, the 2020 Census revealed that New Orleans has enjoyed a general population growth of all races, from 343,829 residents in 2010 to 383,997 in 2020. That constitutes an increase of 11.7 percent which stands well above the national population growth rate of 7.4 percent. The Data Center report surmised, however, “Much of the population growth in New Orleans was likely due to the continuing post-Katrina recovery in the early part of the decade. In fact, year-by-year estimates from the Census Bureau suggest the city’s population may have reached a peak mid-decade and begun to decline slightly in the last few years.”
As Plyer outlined, “In contrast to estimates, which are only available for the city as a whole, the once-every-ten-year Census headcount gives a glimpse of population changes at the neighborhood level. This brief covers neighborhood population recovery rates since 2000 – before Hurricane Katrina struck and the federal levees failed, flooding some 80 percent of the city. It also quantifies neighborhood level changes from 2010 to 2020 to highlight where more recent growth or population loss has occurred, and the racial dynamics of those recent changes. The 2020 data released last month also provides total counts of children by neighborhood which can be helpful for locating the services children will need as New Orleanians struggle to recover from their most recent disasters — the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Ida.”
Still, according to the 2020 Census, New Orleans has only 79 percent of its pre-Katrina total population, with some neighborhoods shrinking and some growing. Yet, the five most overwhelmingly Black neighborhoods in the city now have less than half the population they had prior to Hurricane Katrina, including four that encompass former public housing sites being redeveloped as mixed-income housing: Florida Development, B.W. Cooper Apts., Iberville, and St. Bernard Area. Reflecting predominantly Caucasian gentrification trends, only the St. Thomas Development, now dubbed “River Garden”, has resident totals as high as 77.6 percent of its 2000 total.
The Lower Ninth Ward, where the surge of water was so strong it knocked homes completely off their foundations, also has less than half the population it had prior to Hurricane Katrina. Other neighborhoods that flooded are among those with lower population recovery compared to 2005, helping drive the general percentage decrease in the overall African-American population in the city. They include West Lake Forest, Florida Area, Viavant/Venetian Isles, St. Roch, Holy Cross, St. Claude, Seventh Ward, Tremé/LaFitte, Desire, Freret, and Village de l’Est, all of which have between 50 and 70 percent of the residents they had in 2000.
As previously noted, predominantly Caucasian gentrification has played a huge role in the rebound in New Orleans population statistics. Plyer observed, “Sixteen years after Hurricane Katrina, seven of New Orleans’ 72 neighborhoods actually have larger populations than they did in 2000. These include the Lower Garden District and the Central Business District which together encompass the ‘Warehouse District’ where many commercial buildings have been redeveloped to apartments and condo buildings. Audubon and Lake Terrace & Lake Oaks both experienced significant population growth driven almost entirely by increases in students living in group quarters at Tulane University, Loyola University, and University of New Orleans…Black Pearl and Lakeshore/Lake Vista experienced modest population growth.”
Put another way, from 2010 to 2020, Orleans Parish gained 40,000 new residents. Over 16,000 were White, nearly 13,000 were Hispanic, 700 were Asian and almost 8,000 identified as Multiracial. Just 1,000 were Black. Thus by 2020, the growth city’s residents were increasingly Hispanic, Multiracial, and Caucasian rather than African American.
Interestingly, the fastest growing segment of the New Orleans population is people identifying as more than one race. The number of New Orleanians labeling themselves so more than doubled from 4,360 in 2010 to over 12,000 in 2020, as such that this group now represents 3.2 percent of New Orleanians. (Multiracial individuals may be any combination of White, Asian, Black, Native American, Pacific Islander or other races.)
Looking into the future, the Data Center Director concluded, “While the total number of children in New Orleans grew by less than 5,000, growth across neighborhoods was uneven with about half gaining children and the other half experiencing a decrease in children.”
The number of children (under 18 years old) in New Orleans did grow from 73,000 in 2010 to nearly 78,000 in 2020. Yet, this amounts to nowhere near the city’s pre-Katrina number of children – which stood at nearly 130,000. Still, while a six percent increase in the city’s child population might not seem so large, it stood in contrast to the nation which experienced a 1.4 percent decline in children over the last decade. Notably, adults in New Orleans too grew 13 percent from 2010 to 2020, slightly ahead of the national 10 percent increase. Plyer concluded, “The fact that both growth in adults and children outpaced the nation is likely due to continued post-Katrina recovery in the early part of the decade as mentioned above.”
Indeed, she noted, “Lakeview gained more than 1,000 children.” It is also the area that has seen some of the fastest gentrification trends, and one of the largest percentage increases in affluent Caucasian populations. Demography is destiny, and young white and Hispanic families have been moving into New Orleans at a faster rate than young Black families.
This article originally published in the September 20, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
