Posted on December 30, 2010

Broward Looking More Like Dade

Andres Viglucci and Michael Vasquez, Miami Herald, December 19, 2010

The evolution of Broward shows few signs of slowing as the county becomes far more like Miami-Dade, its southern neighbor, than the ethnically and racially homogenous retiree haven of two decades ago, new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau confirm.

The county has seen a substantial shift in the proportion of its population that is black or Hispanic since the 2000 Census, and the minority share now approaches 50 percent of Broward residents, the newly released survey data shows.

While previous Census Bureau estimates have clearly delineated the trend, the new estimates–which represent five years’ worth of aggregated survey numbers–solidify the portrait of a Broward County that has become dramatically more Hispanic and African-American in a relatively short time.

The Hispanic share of the county population jumped from 17 percent in 2000 to 23 percent, according to cumulative survey data covering the years 2005-2009, while the African-American proportion rose from 21 to 24 percent.

Those increases reflect in part a sharp jump in the county’s immigrant population, the estimates show. Even as the foreign-born share of Miami-Dade’s population was dropping slightly, Broward’s foreign-born proportion jumped from 25 percent to 30 percent. And the percentage of people speaking a language other than English at home rose six percentage points to 35 percent.

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By 2030

The county’s own internal population projections call for Broward to continue attracting minority residents well into the future.

By 2030, Broward expects to be a majority-minority community with Hispanics accounting for 35 percent of residents, blacks accounting for 30 percent, and white, non-Hispanic residents making up less than 27 percent.

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Countries of Origin

Richard Ogburn, a demographer with the South Florida Regional Planning Council

“There’s a significant Caribbean component to the black population,” Ogburn [Richard Ogburn, a demographer with the South Florida Regional Planning Council] said. “That adds diversity even within the black population.”

Richard Ogburn, a demographer with the South Florida Regional Planning Council