White Flight Is Giving Way to Civic Diversity

Almost two dozen stable, ethnically balanced cities emerged in Southern California over the last decade, upending the notion that swift racial turnover inevitably follows when whites start to leave a region.

The proportion of Southland cities where two or more ethnic or racial groups live in substantial numbers almost doubled between 1980 and 2000. In 1980 about a fifth of Southland cities (33 of 149) fit in that category. By 2000 the proportion was roughly four out of 10 (72 of 177), according to an analysis of 2000 census data by USC’s Population Dynamics Group. The number of cities where three or even four ethnic or racial communities co-exist grew by more than 50% in the 1990s alone.

Demographers and community leaders treated the findings with caution: Segregation remains significant at the neighborhood level throughout the region, they said. Moreover, only time will show if the racial mix of the communities remains stable.

Still, the numbers indicate the advance of what the report’s co-author, USC professor Dowell Myers, called “civic integration”--the existence of places where multiple ethnic groups share a political system, social services and cultural institutions.

“The pattern in the past has been more bipolar, with a single minority replacing whites,” Myers said. “This shows that even where whites are declining, there isn’t always that flip-flop.”

Southern California’s non-Latino white population dropped by more than 840,000, or 11.7%, in the last decade, falling out of the majority in a clutch of cities. Across the region, Latinos and non-Latino whites are now groups of roughly equal size--each with about 40% of the population. In Los Angeles County, Latinos are now the largest group.

The USC study zeros in on what happens next, challenging assumptions rooted in the white flight that has transformed cities in the Northeast and Midwest since the 1970s.

“That whole [white] mentality that ‘minorities are coming in, we should leave,’ isn’t as prevalent,” said Bill Gayk, executive director of Cal State Fullerton’s Center for Demographic Research.

The report establishes an equation for balance by defining a city as having two major ethnic groups if each one accounts for at least 30% of the population.

The study concludes that the region’s most dramatic changes have occurred in Orange County, which has gone from having one ethnically balanced city in 1980 to 15 in 2000.

Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, Stanton, Tustin, Westminster and Garden Grove all now have three major groups in their populations, their demographic proportions remade by fast-growing Asian and Latino populations.

The report characterizes a city as having three major groups if each constitutes 15% or more of the population. Cities such as Bellflower, in southern Los Angeles County, where Latinos, whites, blacks and Asians each hold 10% or more of the population, are counted as four-ways.

The cities most likely to lose their multiethnic character are those that start with just two major groups, Myers said.

“The presence of a third or fourth group seems to slow the pace,” he said. “The former majority is more accepting of the change.”

Santa Ana, Monterey Park, Ontario and Oxnard each now have one dominant group, falling from USC’s two-way category in the 1990s.

By contrast, the new three-way cities offer diverse housing options, making them attractive to people at all income levels, Gayk added.

Similarly, construction of affordable new homes has driven multiethnic growth in such cities as Moreno Valley in Riverside County. Fully half of the cities in Riverside County are multiethnic, the highest percentage of any county in the Los Angeles area, said Walt Hawkins, a demographer at Cal State San Bernardino.

By contrast, Ventura County’s relatively small Asian and black populations virtually preclude cities having three or four major groups. Port Hueneme and Fillmore added enough Latino residents in the 1990s to have two major groups, but in addition to Oxnard, Santa Paula fell out of the category, becoming predominately Latino.

Hawkins stressed that increased diversity within city limits does not necessarily mean communities are less segregated.

“Even though these ethnic groups are side by side, they don’t necessarily interact every day politically or socially,” said Hawkins, who also is a school board member in Rialto. “The real key is, how are these people distributed within these communities?”

Hawkins also said the multiethnic increase in Orange County was driven by immigrant Asian and Latino communities clustering in cities near Los Angeles County.

Looking to Carson for What to Expect

Such changes have not brought an increase of African Americans there--an issue that points to persistent perceptions that blacks are unwelcome in those historically white neighborhoods.

In Carson, one of Los Angeles County’s two long-term, four-way cities, balance has both sparked uncommon political coalitions and, more recently, contributed to ethnic tension in City Hall as different groups have struggled for political power.

As more Southern California cities come to resemble Carson, they must consciously deal with their diversity, said Steven Caudillo, who was recently appointed vice chairman of the city’s human relations commission.

“Groups should be working together, exchanging not only ideas but calendars,” Caudillo said, calling his community committee a valuable tool.

After months of turmoil, a recent election has brought new leadership to Carson--and increased energy in City Hall for inter-group cooperation, he said. “Now, in Carson, there’s a willingness to work together, and it’s really exciting because if you have the adults doing that, it’s going to trickle down to the kids.”