The Southern U.S. region— primarily metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Miami and Charlotte, N.C. — accounted for roughly 75% of the population gains among blacks since 2000, up from 65% in the 1990s, according to the latest census estimates. The gains came primarily at the expense of Northern metro areas such as New York and Chicago, which posted their first declines in black population since at least 1980.
The figures are based on 2009 census population estimates. The recent census figures for blacks refer to non-Hispanic blacks, which the Census Bureau began calculating separately in 1980.
In all, about 57% of U.S. blacks now live in the South, a jump from the 53% share in the 1970s, according to an analysis of census data by William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. It was the surest sign yet of a sustained reverse migration to the South following the exodus of millions of blacks to the Midwest, Northeast and West in the Great Migration from 1910 to 1970.
