Race and ethnicity: Los Angeles

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I was astounded by Bill Rankin's map of Chicago's racial and ethnic divides and wanted to see what other cities looked like mapped the same way. To match his map, Red is White, Blue is Black, Green is Asian, Orange is Hispanic, Gray is Other, and each dot is 25 people. Data from Census 2000. Base map © OpenStreetMap, CC-BY-SA

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  1. i-roberto 33 months ago | reply

    I have broken the code: Whites are red necks, Blacks invented the blues, Hispanics sell oranges, Asians drink green tea, Grays are from Other planets.

  2. Mad Science 33 months ago | reply

    I'd be curious to see how this changes for 2010 in North/Northeast LA (Hollywood, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Los Feliz, Atwater, Eagle Rock, Glassell Park, etc). Those were very different places in 2000.

    Still, proud and surprised to see how integrated LA is compared to other major metro areas.

  3. stacymckenna 33 months ago | reply

    A friend linked me - this is fabulous - absolutely fascinating. I would love to see this updated with 2010 data. I also think it would be fascinating to pick one city and enter the data from every census and then watch how the data morphs over the years.

  4. Eric Fischer 33 months ago | reply

    I intend to do a 2010 version as soon as the Census finishes tabulating the data. I think the full release is planned for next June. If you want to see change over time, Social Explorer has some of that.

  5. gaustinw 33 months ago | reply

    Sad that it doesn't quite go down to Long Beach, which has been reportedly the most culturally diverse city in the US. Would have liked to see the breakdown there.

  6. donteatmeatnow! for reals! 33 months ago | reply

    cool! i think i see myself!

  7. Juice Stain is my contact 33 months ago | reply

    There's one specifically for Long Beach too!!

  8. fourth_level_dreamer 33 months ago | reply

    Well in the early days of Los Angeles, believe it or not, the powers that be made it illegal to sell beach front and other valuable property to blacks, hispanics and all the other minorities of the time. So if anyone happens to have a superiority complex about race and land ownership they can thank their ignorant racist leaders of the past for the disparity that exists now. Boy, I wished I lived back then, that map would look so different today!

  9. Incandescere's Gallery 33 months ago | reply

    It's funny. I don't remember my old stomping grounds feeling this integrated. But I remember deliberately seeking out neighborhoods that we racially diverse because I didn't want to reside in "all [name an ethnicity] neighborhood". West Van Nuys/Lake Balboa suited me. This is a cool project. Thanks!

  10. VPostrel 33 months ago | reply

    The most striking thing about this map to this Angeleno is what a large swath of L.A. is made up of land with no people.

  11. Orpheus Knight 33 months ago | reply

    The map of Los Angeles is amazing accurate. I've lived in Los Angeles all my life. I have watched as the black population of Los Angeles diminishes as we get pushed out by Mexican illegal immigrants. We are effectively surrounded and our numbers are dwindling. At first I thought we might be dispersing into the greater population, but this is not the case. It is fascinating to watch the change, and see a digital visual representation of what I only organically sense.

  12. gclefjen 33 months ago | reply

    VPostrel, that swath is because of the mountains.

  13. bdeaton 33 months ago | reply

    - look for the voids to "see" the freeways... dodger stadium is also a good landmark to use.

  14. cooljwn 33 months ago | reply

    Hi --

    Thanks so much for making these map images fair use. I used one of the images for a recent blog post:

    newtpsyc.blogspot.com/

    Thanks!

  15. erica_photog 33 months ago | reply

    Man, that's sad. Check out the west side and the way it reflects income.

  16. taeinla 33 months ago | reply

    I find this map fascinating. I took the liberty of merging this with the L.A. Times Mapping L.A. project. The result is here (with full attribution given). www.flickr.com/photos/54394504@N04/5034924097/sizes/l/in/...

  17. Love Stallion 32 months ago | reply

    I'm fascinated by the collection of black people in what can only be Altadena/North Pasadena. I had no idea.

    I also love seeing how obviously green it gets once one hits the San Gabriel Valley. I swear the second one gets to USC Medical everything is suddenly Asian-heavy.

    Amazing.

  18. Eric Fischer 32 months ago | reply

    Replaced with new image that represents the shapes of census blocks accurately.

  19. Angelia 2041 31 months ago | reply

    more interrelationship.

  20. Eric Fischer 27 months ago | reply

    Updated for Census 2010:

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