Race/ethnicity: Nurturing diversity and increasing equity are critical to our region’s future.
Insights & Analyses
- The Bay Area region has long been one of the most diverse in the nation. People of color became the majority around 1980, some 65 years before the nation as a whole will be majority people of color.
- Milipitas and Cupertino have the largest and second-largest Asian American populations in the region.
- The Black population has decreased by ten percent in the region since 2000, exceeding a similar downward trend experienced at the state level.
- The area's Native American population has also continued to dwindle, decreasing by over 25 percent between 2000 and 2020.
- Since the year 2000, the region's Latinx and Asian American populations have increased. The white share of the region’s total population has declined in line with a similar trend at the state level.
Drivers of Demographic Shifts
With its ties to the Pacific Rim and Mexico, as well as its Gold Rush history, the Bay Area has long been a destination for immigrants from within the United States and abroad, and boasts one of the most diverse populations in the country, if not the world. The housing crisis is placing the region's diversity at risk. Since 1980, the region’s high cost of living has pushed out many of its Black and Latinx residents, contributing to significant decline in the Black population overall and the resegregation of the region as lower-income Black and Latinx residents are displaced to the outer suburbs.
Strategies
Invest in people: Strategies to strengthen racial diversity and inclusion
- Embed a racial equity approach throughout government, including using a racial equity impact assessment tool on proposed policies
- Encourage businesses to commit to becoming anti-racist institutions that take action to advance racial equity internally and externally
- Build multiracial alliances and coalitions to advance policy change
- Develop strategies to dismantle barriers and ensure access to opportunity for specific vulnerable populations, such as boys and men of color
- Implement anti-displacement and community wealth-building strategies to reverse the trend of Black displacement
- Include immigrants by ensuring access to health care, driver’s licenses, and municipal ID cards regardless of immigration status; increasing language access; facilitating naturalization; limiting the participation of local law enforcement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement; providing legal assistance; and allowing non-citizens to vote in school board elections
- Strengthen democracy by increasing civic participation and voting among underrepresented groups and building leadership development pipelines
Strategy in Action
Preserving Filipinx culture and heritage in a changing neighborhood. The Filipinx community has long-standing and strong roots in San Francisco’s South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood. However, over the past few decades economic and real estate developments have threatened cultural and physical displacement of long-time residents. In 2016, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors designated SOMA Pilipinas as a cultural heritage district, tasked with preserving and celebrating the rich and diverse history of the Filipinx community in SOMA through community organizing, cultural events, protection of community assets, and advocating for justice and the rights of residents. One such effort designed to boost economic vitality among local entrepreneurs and cultural awareness is the UNDISCOVERED SF night markets that began in fall 2017. With more than 10,000 people in attendance on opening night, the night market not only generated revenue for Filipinx small businesses, but also provided skill-set-building workshops and mentorship to sustain long-term growth. Learn more.
Photo: SOMA Pilipinas
In Their Own Words...
“ Having stable housing means having my independence.”
51-year old Sonja Sawyer's mother was among the nearly 6,000 predominantly Black families displaced from the Western Addition and Hunters Point by San Francisco's urban renewal program during the 1960s and '70s. The city issued these households a "certificate of preference" that gives them priority in accessing city-funded housing projects. Sonja's mother passed down the certificate, but it took Sonja seven years to navigate the various eligibility requirements and successfully find her new home in Mission Bay. She likes her new neighborhood, and appreciates living near a transit stop where she can take the train to work at Young Community Developers in the Bayview.
Photo: Felix Uribe
Resources
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Organizations: 6 Wins for Social Equity Network, Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, Government Alliance on Race & Equity
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Reports: Race, Inequality, and the Resegregation of the Bay Area; Rising Housing Costs and Resegregation
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Toolkits: Immigration Resources in the Bay Area, HealthEquityGuide.org
