Orange County Is More Diverse

Orange County residents are more likely today than 10 years ago to shop, bank or go to movie theaters alongside a person of a different race or ethnic background, an analysis of Census 2000 data shows.

In every human encounter, those odds are now better than 50% in 16 Orange County cities, up from 11 cities a decade ago.

Among Orange County cities, Stanton is the most heterogeneous, with a diversity index score of 76, meaning that any two people picked at random within the city’s boundaries would be of a different race 76% of the time.

Santa Ana was a close second at 75; Buena Park ranked third at 73.

Newport Beach, whose population is 90% white, was the least diverse community. With a diversity index score of 18, more than four times out of five, the next person you might encounter in Newport Beach would be white.

Such calculated probability, however, is not everyday reality.

“It sheds light on the probability that people [of a different race] will bump into each other,” said Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography at USC. “But people can share the same space and live in different worlds.”

Indeed, Census 2000 data have shown that Orange County is becoming more a mosaic of races than a melting pot. Whites have left the county or migrated heavily to the southern part of Orange County, while Latinos and Asians have gravitated toward the north, many clustering in enclaves.

Still, the rise in the diversity index was welcomed by community activists and government officials.

“The walls are breaking down slowly but surely every day,” said Van Tran, the first Vietnamese American elected to the City Council in Garden Grove, which has the county’s largest Vietnamese population at 35,406.

The diversity index also has increased for the county as a whole over the last decade, a trend also seen in many parts of the nation.

Orange County’s index, 64, now ranks 14th in the state, up from 19th in 1990, and ahead of its southern neighbor, San Diego County, which slipped a notch to 19th with 61. Los Angeles County ranked the highest in California with a 79% probability of interacting with a person of another race or ethnicity.

Garden Grove’s Diversity Index is 73, fourth-highest in the county. It is among the county’s most ethnically balanced--with whites, Latinos and Asians each making up about a third of the population.