Diversity Explosion
As part of our 25th anniversary celebrations, Living Cities is hosting a Virtual Event for our broader network to engage in critical conversation around Closing Racial Opportunity Gaps. We encourage you to tune-in, share your thoughts, provide feedback, and partake in conversation with participants.
At this point, many of us are familiar with the reality that by 2044, America will be a country with no racial majority. In a 5 minute presentation packed with graphs and attention-grabbing statistics, Bill Frey offered a clearer understanding of what that will actually look like for our country, and prompted me to think more deeply about the challenges and opportunities that this transformation presents.
Bill Frey is a demographer and author who, over his career, has studied 5 rounds of census data — over 50 years of our nation’s demographic history. So when he says that our country is at a unique moment in our history, it’s worth taking note. In fact, according to Frey, the coming demographic transformation will have a more significant impact on our country than the baby boom decades earlier. As the white population in our country ages, it is growing minority groups who, to a large extent, hold the key to our economy’s continued vitality, productivity and innovation. But if current racial inequities around education, income, wealth are allowed to persist and widen, the future looks bleaker. We’re setting ourselves up for a future where a majority of the population will have worse life chances than the shrinking minority.
For me, Frey’s presentation brought to mind something I’ve heard time and time again about change: that fear of change is rooted in a fear of loss. I see this playing out in current political climate, as I watch fellow Americans flock to rhetoric that promises refuge from a rapidly changing world and an escape from uncertainty. And I fear that political leaders will see these demographic changes as an opportunity to prey on the anxieties of many Americans who fear for their own economic futures and those of their families, and who may interpret the success of other groups of Americans as evidence of their own diminishing piece of the pie.
But the bigger picture illustrated by Frey’s data is clear: our economic future as a country will be determined by the way we respond to this moment in our history. None of us have the luxury of burying our heads in the sand and ignoring the realities of our nation’s future — we’re all in the same star-spangled boat. But there’s an economic imperative that should call all of us to actively fight these inequalities. We have a unique opportunity right now to ensure that our future diversity will translate into a stronger economy that benefits all of us.
Learn more about Bill Frey’s work and check out his book:
