The Racial Resegregation of Los Angeles County, 1940-2000

4.0 DETAILED FINDINGS
10,000,000
9,000,000
8,000,000
7,000,000
6,000,000
5,000,000
4,000,000
3,000,000
2,000,000
1,000,000
0
CHART 1: OVERALL POPULATION FIGURES
Total and Proportional Racial Population of Los Angeles County, 1940-2000
1.9%
2.2%
2.7%
93.3%
5.8%
1.3%
5.0%
87.9%
2.0%
9.6%
7.6%
80.8%
19 4 0 19 50 19 6 0 19 70 19 8 0 19 9 0 2 0 0 0
Asian 52,911 57,582 123,638 201,704 536,241 963,642 1,308,766
Hispanic 61,248 249,173 582,309 1,288,716 2,071,530 3,359,526 4,242,213
Black 75,206 214,897 459,806 755,719 924,774 931,449 924,518
White 2,620,450 3,796,190 4,897,580 4,798,872 3,977,480 3,647,555 3,043,840
Chart 1, “Total and Proportional Racial Population of Los Angeles County, 1940-
2000,” displays the total population, total subgroup population, and proportional share of
each population in percentages, from 1940 to 2000.
Race Contours 2000 –Resegregation of Los Angeles County, 1940-2000 10
Asian
Hispanic
While the most obvious fact about the county is its great diversity, notice also that even by
1980, a most important feature of the overall patterns is that Whites reached the apogee of
their population size as early as 1960, and have been declining in absolute numbers ever
since.
The Black population peaked in 1990, but has remained almost constant since 1980, at just
under one million persons.
Indeed, despite spectacular growth of the Los Angels metropolis since 1940, Whites in 2000
are only slightly more numerous than they were in before the Second World War.
In other words, the growth of Los Angeles County since 1960 is almost entirely the work of
non-White and non-Black groups.
2.9%
18.3%
10.7%
68.2%
7.1%
27.6%
12.3%
53.0%
10.8%
37.7%
10.5%
41.0%
13.7%
44.6%
9.7%
32.0%
Black
White