Asians are now the largest racial group in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to results from the 2020 census compiled by the San Jose Mercury News. The percentage of Asians in the six county area grew from 25.5% in 2010 to 33.1% in 2020, while the white population percentage shrank from 40.3% to 32.9% in the same time period. Overall, the population increased 9% to almost 6.7 million people. What can we conclude from this data, which comes with a couple of caveats?
One thing we can conclude is that there has been some white flight in the Bay Area. If you work back from the percentages, the white population in the area fell over the ten years between 2010 and 2020 while the Asian population greatly increased. That makes the rise of Asian American themed malls in the area hardly surprising – more a reflection of the local demographics generated from white flight rather than some intentional self-segregation.
As I mentioned, there are some caveats to take into account. The article considers the Bay Area to be the six counties of Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin. Some analysis adds the counties of Napa, Solano, and Sonoma to what is considered the Bay Area, which changes makes the percentages to 39.2% white and 27.9% Asian. This data doesn’t take into account the pandemic, which saw many people of all races leave the Bay Area (estimated to be 3% of the total population). It would also be interesting to see that data, but we will have to wait some time before that is available.
