The District of Columbia’s black population continues to fall, though blacks still make up the majorityof residents in the city, according to new data released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Census population estimates for 2006 show that the city’s black population slightly declined from 337,588 in 2005 to 334,267.
Overall population was relatively steady, with D.C. losing about 1,000 people for a total population of approximately 581,000.
The District’s population has had an upward trend in recent years after years of consistent decline. Approximately 10,000 new residents have moved to the city since the turn of the century.
The city losing black residents is a continuation of a decades-long trend of black flight from the city. The black population in the city has dropped 16 percent since 1990, when 400,000 blacks lived in Washington.
Despite this loss, Washington is one of only five states where a minority is actually the majority. Approximately 68 percent of District residents are nonwhite, with blacks representing 58 percent of the total population. Although the black population in the District has steadily been declining, the white, Hispanic and Asian populations have been consistently on the rise. Also according to the census, since 1990, the number of whites living in the District has increased 2 percent from about 179,000 to 184,000.
At the same time, the Hispanic population has increased by almost 50 percent, from about 33,000 in 1990 to more than 47,000 in 2006. The Asian population nearly doubled from 11,000 in 1990 to 21,000 in 2006.
The changes in population over the past two decades are thought to be due to increases in the cost of living as many city neighborhoods undergo redevelopment. Many poorer residents are being forced out of neighborhoods such as Chinatown and Capitol Hill as home and rental prices increase.
“A lot of neighborhoods are going through a process of change and growth,” Brookings Institution demographer Audrey Singer told The Examiner.
In addition, a 2006 report from the D.C.-based nonprofit Urban Institute found that many middle-class Washington residents are leaving for the suburbs because of poor public schools in the city and in order to buy bigger homes.
