DALLAS TEXAS IS TRACKING ITS BLACK PEOPLE?

Dallas Diversity by the Numbers

What census data reveals about the area's African-American enclaves.

 

Charles Griggsby
President and CEO, Facility Interiors

Data from the 2010 U.S. Census is still trickling out, and the preliminary numbers tell an interesting story about North Texas. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan statistical area is the fourth-most populous in the country. New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago might have more people, but North Texas is doing its best to catch up. Over the past decade, its population grew at the staggering rate of more than 23 percent, adding upwards of a million inhabitants and bringing the area’s population to around 6.4 million.

Of those 6.4 million people, blacks account for almost a million—over a million, in fact, when you add in the more than 50,000 who refused to check just one box on their census forms and identified as black along with one or more other races. In North Texas today, Black Americans make up more than 15 % of the population.

It’s no secret that “urban” is often code for “black,” but African-Americans in Dallas are turning that notion on its head. Gone are the days of the black inner city and lily-white suburbs. The percentage of blacks in urban Dallas and Fort Worth actually declined from 2000 to 2010, according to research compiled by the Dallas Morning News. Instead, blacks are migrating to the ’burbs. From Frisco to Mesquite to Mansfield, suburban areas around Dallas have seen an influx of African-Americans. Here’s a closer look at some of the places where they’re setting down roots.

illustration by Chris Philpot

1. Hamilton Park
Total population: 5,237
Black population: 2,933
Black percentage: 56.0%
Median age: 29.8

2. Duncanville
Total population: 35,666
Black population: 8,703
Black percentage: 24.4%
Median age: 34.9

3. Cedar Hill
Total population: 43,298
Black population: 20,134
Black percentage: 46.5%
Median age: 31.5

3. Desoto
Total population: 46,291
Black population: 28,191
Black percentage: 60.9%
Median age: 38.2

4. Glenn Heights
Total population: 10,504
Black population: 4,706
Black percentage: 44.8%
Median age: 28.3

5. Lancaster
Total population: 34,313
Black population: 22,818
Black percentage: 66.5%
Median age: 32.2

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*photo by Dan Sellers

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