Today’s immigrants share little of the characteristics of their predecessors 100 years ago. Whereas immigrants in 1900 hailed largely from Europe and flooded mainly East Coast cities, today’s migrants are largely from Asian and Latin American countries and live in the suburbs.
According to the Brookings Institution’s State of Metropolitan America report, foreign-born growth in city suburbs is far outpacing inner-city growth. In the Washington area, the immigrant population has grown by 42 percent in the suburbs over the last decade while it has declined by 3 percent in the city.
The same is true for other major cities along the East Coast — the Philadelphia area’s immigrant population has grown by 47 percent in the suburbs and by 30 percent in the city.
The New York area’s foreign-born population has inched up in the cities but grown by 15 percent in the suburbs.
In both Philadelphia and New York, the white population has slipped in the suburbs while the Asian and Hispanic populations have jumped, in some cases up to 57 percent.
The Washington area, however, takes the cake — its suburban Hispanic population has increased nearly 83 percent since 2000, according to Brookings.
