Arkansas' Hispanic Population Growth is Fastest in US

[johnnydr87]

WASHINGTON - America's growing diversity has reached nearly every state.

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From South Carolina's budding immigrant population to the fast-rising number of Hispanics in Arkansas, minority groups make up an increasing share of the population in every state but one, according to figures released Tuesday by the

Census Bureau.

[...]_Such whites are a minority in four states

[Mith242]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060815/ap_on_re_us/us_diversity

Hispanics grew by 48 in 6 years in Arkansas. Whoa.

I'm looking for the full study....I will edit it in.

I beat you to this info, but I didn't make a new topic for it. South Carolina had 47% growth in their foreign residents. This includes more than just Hispanics. I posted a link to the article I found early this morning in the NWA coffeeshop topic and the topic discussing a coffeeshop subforum in the main general Arkansas forum.

Here we go.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14348539/

[johnnydr87]

I beat you to this info, but I didn't make a new topic for it. South Carolina had 47% growth in their foreign residents. This includes more than just Hispanics. I posted a link to the article I found early this morning in the NWA coffeeshop topic and the topic discussing a coffeeshop subforum in the main general Arkansas forum.

Here we go.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14348539/

Ah! Oh well...

Do you know where the full study is?

[Mith242]

Ah! Oh well...

Do you know where the full study is?

No, I haven't seen it yet. There was what looked like a longer article in today's Arkansas Democrat Gazette . I just happened to see that article onlione early this morning before getting ready for work. Haven't been off long enough to go looking for it just yet.

[Mith242]

I've seen some basic figures at the census bureau's website, but nothing that so far that broke it down like I saw in much of the news media today. This doesn't apply to Arkansas but I thought Aporkalypse would find it interesting. Texas has now became the fourth state where minorities make up over 50% of the population. It joins Hawaii, New Mexico and California.

[Aporkalypse]

I've seen some basic figures at the census bureau's website, but nothing that so far that broke it down like I saw in much of the news media today. This doesn't apply to Arkansas but I thought Aporkalypse would find it interesting. Texas has now became the fourth state where minorities make up over 50% of the population. It joins Hawaii, New Mexico and California.

I've spend enough time in San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston to tell you that's definitely true. The big difference here is that you have a notably less significant black population than throughout most of the Southeast but a large volume of Hispanics. One thing that's different about Texas is that you have 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics who you would have no idea were Hispanic aside from surnames like Garcia and Rodriguez. The "Tex-Mex" group are often lawyers or professionals and fully integrated. The newer problem is that in cities like Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio you have huge sections of town where English is a second language, apartments complexes that advertise only in Spanish, and a populace that has little incentive to learn English. I think that's an alarming trend as this occurred much less often in previous generations.

Hawaii is interesting. Different minorities there but I have to admit I didn't think they would outnumber the honkies.

Arkansas may have the fastest growing Hispanic population but the total numbers are still small, less than 1/3 of the national average. LR itself has fewer Hispanics than the state average. I think we are going to see that continue to change, though, at the rate that the Hispanic population here is growing.

[Mith242]

Hawaii is interesting. Different minorities there but I have to admit I didn't think they would outnumber the honkies.

Arkansas may have the fastest growing Hispanic population but the total numbers are still small, less than 1/3 of the national average. LR itself has fewer Hispanics than the state average. I think we are going to see that continue to change, though, at the rate that the Hispanic population here is growing.

Yeah, although Hispanic growth rate in Arkansas is impressive, to be honest a lot of it has to do with the fact that Arkansas isn't highly populated as other states.

[johnnydr87]

Definitely.

As an aside, I saw Fayetteville, Arkansas, talked about as one of the most educated cities in a Census news release. 44% have a bachelors.

[Mith242]

Definitely.

As an aside, I saw Fayetteville, Arkansas, talked about as one of the most educated cities in a Census news release. 44% have a bachelors.

Interesting, something you don't hear much when talking about Arkansas cities. Do you remember where you saw that?

[johnnydr87]

Here:

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/re...acs/007287.html

Percent Bachelor

[Aporkalypse]

Here:

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/re...acs/007287.html

So about 45%.

That's not uncommon for college towns.

[johnnydr87]

I wonder why they mentioned Fayetteville as opposed to other college towns...

[Aporkalypse]

I wonder why they mentioned Fayetteville as opposed to other college towns...

It has its own metro area and it over 50k in population.

[johnnydr87]

It has its own metro area and it over 50k in population.

I see. Well, they definitely weren't talking about the metro. There's no way that's over 44%.

Anyways, for interest, I looked up Cambridge, MA, where MIT, Harvard, and a lot of other top colleges are based around.

For population 25 years and over in Cambridge

* High school or higher: 89.5%

* Bachelor's degree or higher: 65.1%

* Graduate or professional degree: 38.5%

* Unemployed: 6.1%

* Mean travel time to work: 23.8 minutes

Kind of crazy, but not surprising.

[Aporkalypse]

I see. Well, they definitely weren't talking about the metro. There's no way that's over 44%.

Anyways, for interest, I looked up Cambridge, MA, where MIT, Harvard, and a lot of other top colleges are based around.

For population 25 years and over in Cambridge

* High school or higher: 89.5%

* Bachelor's degree or higher: 65.1%

* Graduate or professional degree: 38.5%

* Unemployed: 6.1%

* Mean travel time to work: 23.8 minutes

Kind of crazy, but not surprising.

I remember seeing these numbesr at one point for a lot of cities in the South and Little Rock compared very favorably to cities like Memphis, Dallas, Tulsa, Shreveport, Jackson, Birmingham, Atlanta, etc. I'll try to find those numbers again.

[Aporkalypse]

OK, here are some numbers for percent over 25 with a Bachelor's for Arkansas communities and some in the Southeast for comparison, per census.gov:

Arkansas 16.7%

---------------------------------

Fayetteville 41.2

Conway 36.0

Little Rock 35.5

Jonesboro 26.6

North LR 22.0

Rogers 21.1

Ft Smith 18.6

Springdale 17.7

Hot Springs 16.6

Texarkana 14.7

---------------------------------

Memphis 20.9

Nashville 29.7

New Orleans 25.8

Shreveport 22.2

Tulsa 28.3

OKC 24.0

Jackson 22.1

Birmingham 18.5

Dallas 27.7

Houston 27.0

Austin 40.4

Now this list is really just of core cities. If you start hitting the really nice 'burbs you come up with numbers like 54% in Plano.

Some college towns are very high - College Station is 58.1%, Athens 40%, Auburn 56%, etc but some like Knoxville and Tuscaloosa are more modest - 25-30%.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

These numbers are 5 years old, so there probably has been some modest shift in all of NWA due to growth, I would wager. Still, pretty impressive that Arkansas sizes up favorably in many ways to other regional metros.

[Mith242]

OK, here are some numbers for percent over 25 with a Bachelor's for Arkansas communities and some in the Southeast for comparison, per census.gov:

Arkansas 16.7%

---------------------------------

Fayetteville 41.2

Conway 36.0

Little Rock 35.5

Jonesboro 26.6

North LR 22.0

Rogers 21.1

Ft Smith 18.6

Springdale 17.7

Hot Springs 16.6

Texarkana 14.7

---------------------------------

Memphis 20.9

Nashville 29.7

New Orleans 25.8

Shreveport 22.2

Tulsa 28.3

OKC 24.0

Jackson 22.1

Birmingham 18.5

Dallas 27.7

Houston 27.0

Austin 40.4

Now this list is really just of core cities. If you start hitting the really nice 'burbs you come up with numbers like 54% in Plano.

Some college towns are very high - College Station is 58.1%, Athens 40%, Auburn 56%, etc but some like Knoxville and Tuscaloosa are more modest - 25-30%.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

These numbers are 5 years old, so there probably has been some modest shift in all of NWA due to growth, I would wager. Still, pretty impressive that Arkansas sizes up favorably in many ways to other regional metros.

Yeah it is nice to see at least some Arkansas cities being comparable. By the way where's Pine Bluff on there? We all know it's a college town and has to be way up on the list.

[Aporkalypse]

Yeah it is nice to see at least some Arkansas cities being comparable. By the way where's Pine Bluff on there? We all know it's a college town and has to be way up on the list.

17.6%, I don't know why I left it off.

[Mith242]

17.6%, I don't know why I left it off.

Hey that's not so bad compared to some other Arkansas cities. But it is a college town in some sense so I guess it shouldn't bring up the bottom.

[Aporkalypse]

Hey that's not so bad compared to some other Arkansas cities. But it is a college town in some sense so I guess it shouldn't bring up the bottom.

Pine Bluff serves a regional service role so there are a lot of professionals there - lawyers, doctors, bankers, nurses, etc, in addition to UAPB. There is an educated workforce there as there is in all of the regional cities such as Jonesboro, Texarkana, and Ft Smith which all have their own significant service industries.