New Orleans lost more blacks

Numbers dropped by 57% after Katrina, while population of whites fell by 36%, study says

By Miguel Bustillo

Los Angeles Times

New Orleans' black population dropped 57 percent a year after Hurricane Katrina, while the white population declined 36 percent, according to an analysis by three demographers of new census data.

Billed as the "first full picture" of the mass migration after the hurricane, the analysis also found that New Orleans residents displaced to Houston and other cities were more likely to be black, uneducated and poor.

By contrast, those who relocated to the city's suburbs were more likely to be white, educated and well-off.

While many New Orleans leaders had lamented the uneven toll on black residents after Katrina, demographer William H. Grey of the Brookings Institution, one of the study's authors, said it was still surprising to see the data show it in such stark terms.

The analysis painted a picture of post-Katrina New Orleans as a city notably whiter, older and less populous than it had been during the 2000 census, with fewer children, fewer renters and a more educated citizenry.

However, it also noted that the city was still a "majority minority" city, with blacks making up roughly 58 percent of the population when the federal government's data snapshot was taken last summer.

"The census estimates make plain that the city of New Orleans sustained a much more substantial loss of its black population than of its whites," the demographers concluded, adding, "The black loss, however, was not sufficient to shift the racial composition of the city."

The analysis primarily contrasted data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 American Community Survey and 2006 population estimate with similar information collected as part of the 2000 U.S. census.

One of their more surprising findings, given the anecdotal reports about an influx of Hispanic immigrants since Katrina, was that the Census Bureau's 2006 figures for the city and metropolitan area showed a Hispanic population of just 4 percent to 6 percent, smaller than in 2005.