‘White Flight’ Has Reversed, Census Finds

The proportion of New York City residents who are white and non-Hispanic rose slightly last year, reversing more than a half-century of so-called white flight from the city, according to census figures released on Tuesday.

The share of non-Hispanic whites in the city had been shrinking since at least 1940. As the overall population grew, their ranks declined by 361,000 in the 1990s alone. Since 2000, though, their number has increased by more than 100,000. Half of that increase was recorded from 2006 to 2007.

“The fact that it is not going down is the news,” said Joseph J. Salvo, director of the population division at the Department of City Planning. “The increase is small, but the relative stability of the number and percent is meaningful.”

He described the turnaround as a testament to the city’s “diversity and ethnic heterogeneity” and said it “sets New York apart from many other older cities where this is not the case.”

Andrew A. Beveridge, a demographer at Queens College, called the apparent trend a potential “harbinger of racial equilibrium.”

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