Opinion

Census reveals a changing Houston

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released its findings for Texas in order for state and local officials to begin the redistricting process. While much of the growth and demographic change reflected in the data are known to us at an anecdotal level, the presence of actual data gives us the opportunity to dive more deeply into the details of our own neighborhoods as well as those all around the greater Houston area. As the reports and interpretations of the census results have already shown, Houston is a fast-changing place. There exist several trends begun over the last decade that will influence how the next generation of leaders in Houston engages in business, education, government and the nonprofit sector.

While Houston's "ward" system has not been a factor in Houston government for more than a century, our thumbnail understanding of the wards still influences much of how we think about neighborhoods within Houston's 610 Loop. But as populations grow and neighborhoods age, what we see more often is that demographic booms are happening outside of the traditional areas where a given demographic group is associated.

So it is that Houston's East End (Second Ward) is not the source of Hispanic population growth in Houston. Instead, both population and demographics in that area remained just as they were in the 2000 census. Where we do have growth in the Hispanic population is in the remainder of the county. In essence, the Hispanic population grows wherever growth exists. And in many cases, growth exists solely as a result of a growing Hispanic population.

Beyond the traditional wards, Houston's Asian population in the southwest part of the county serves as another example. While commercial real estate continues to develop around the population in the southwest, population growth among Asian-Americans has leveled off there while it has exploded on the northwest side of town: There are more than 35,000 Asian-Americans living within a five-mile radius of Willowbrook Mall.

And just to add another layer of complexity, more parts of Houston have become multicultural — not predominantly white, black, Hispanic or Asian, but all of the above. This, no doubt, represents the optimistic side of the spectrum that suggests an increase in tolerance and a decrease in discrimination. But at the same time, we still find a number of pockets of poverty, language isolation and other indicators that more work needs to be done before any golden age is declared.

How we address those issues is not an abstract matter, and adding the new insight that census data provides is a timely remedy to removing some of the misconceptions that can get in the way. As technology becomes increasingly user-friendly and data becomes easier to access, it is possible for ordinary Texans to discover their own neighborhood and find innovative ways to address the specific challenges close to home.

Already, school districts have been making every effort to stay one step ahead of the curve by doing things like introducing language classes relevant to the changing demographics of the communities they serve or transitioning school lunch programs in areas where there had previously been no need. Similarly, crime and transit data are available online in many urban areas, with a host of websites, such as CrimeReports.com, which is actively used by the Harris County Sheriff's Office and allows users outside of the office to see results in their neighborhood.

The result is that, increasingly, assumptions and personal heuristics that we once used to make decisions are being supplanted by cold, hard data that illuminates a new understanding of the way we live, work and play.

The Houston area is changing in ways big and small. Getting familiar with the story told in the numbers that result from those changes is a task not just for elected officials and government leaders. It's a task that anyone with a question and a curiosity about their neighborhood can ask and have answered online, either with the Census Bureau's own tools or through third-party sites such as CensusThing.com. Whenever information is freely dispersed to the public at-large, we allow citizens to be active partners in making government work more efficiently.

The census is one of many ways that enable this sort of civic participation and Houstonians (as well as those further beyond city limits) would do well to start digging into the details.

Tameez is founder and managing director of Outreach Strategists.