One of the big local stories of the 2010 Census was the decline in the number of majority-Anglo areas throughout Harris County. This map from consultant and Census obsessive Greg Wythe diagrams the trend pretty clearly. The areas colored red are where the portion of the local population identifying itself as Anglo dropped 10 percent or more; the areas where that group’s share of the population dropped by less than 10 percent are marked brown (Wythe says he started out painting them orange, but the satellite photo in the background made it darker). Areas marked a light blue are where the percentage of Anglos increased by less than 10 percent. And the dark blue (okay, purplish) areas show where Whites have been rushing in: Anglos’ share of the total population jumped by more than 10 percent in those areas.

“If you were to measure solely on the basis of the number of Anglos,” he explains, “you’re likely to see a lot of growth in areas where there’s growth in general. Cypress is an example — they grew in every demographic because they grew a lot, period.” But Wythe’s map tracks the changes in percentage of the population, not population growth.

The big exception to the overall trend of declining percentages of Anglos? The Heights.

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The Heights was one of the few areas in the county (another was the East End) that experienced a net loss of Hispanic population. But with all the Anglos moving in, the population of the area grew by about 11 percent — “nothing to sneeze at for an area without the space to develop that a Cypress or Pearland has,” Wythe comments. (Wythe admits he’s defining “the Heights” somewhat broadly here — he uses the label to describe the Inner Loop area west of 45 and north of Buffalo Bayou, plus one north-of-the-loop tract.)

in many of the areas where Anglo population is growing [in an area that has a large] African-American or heavily Hispanic population, the growth is from one small number to another small number –– like from 1 percent to 2 percent. The Heights is another animal altogether, as Anglo population in many of the tracts grows from more along the lines of 40-something percent to 60-something percent. . . . East End has some minor loss in terms of count and share, but even there … the share tends to go some something like 80%-ish to 70%-ish, so it still maintains much of its traditional character. By comparison, the Heights legitimately flipped from majority-Hispanic to majority-Anglo.

Maps: Greg Wythe