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Denver gets whiter; suburbs more diverse

Burt Hubbard The Denver PostDenver, CO Colorado

DENVER, Colorado At Ricardo Flores Magon Academy at West 72nd Avenue and Irving Street in suburban Westminster, about 150 mostly low-income Latino children from the nearby neighborhoods sit quietly in classrooms.To the south in Lakewood, the police chief is recruiting bilingual police officers and giving others crash courses in basic Spanish.In Denver’s Five Points area, real estate broker Rebekah Brock watches the start of a wave of white families moving into the traditionally majority black neighborhood.Throughout the metro area, neighborhoods have turned topsy-turvy.A Denver Post analysis of state birth records shows that the racial integration of the central city and suburbs that began in the 1990s intensified through this decade.The analysis shows that Denver is getting considerably whiter, while its suburbs have gained in minority primarily Latino population.If the 2010 census confirms those findings, there will be numerous implications, particularly in education and politics.”It’s not your parents’ metropolitan area,” said Mark Muro, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank. “This is the new metropolitan reality.”The analysis of births by race and neighborhood between 2000 and 2007 found: The percentage of children born to white families is on the rise in Denver, while Latino births are declining, reversing a decades-old trend. Adams County is emerging as the new Latino center in the metro area. Latino births there now equal the birth rate in Denver, both at 45 percent of all births. The biggest increases in Latino births this decade are in Westminster, Lakewood and Aurora. Arapahoe County has emerged as one of the most diverse counties in the state. White births have dropped from 62 percent to 51 percent of all births during the past eight years. Black births have risen to 13 percent, now surpassing the Denver birth rate, and Latino births rose to 27 percent. Entire neighborhoods in Aurora along Interstate 225 from East Colfax Avenue to the city’s southern boundary have seen an influx of Latino residents in just seven years.No true black neighborhoods The metro area’s black population has become integrated in neighborhoods throughout Denver and Arapahoe County. Not a single neighborhood in Denver has more than 50 percent of its births to African-Americans. In 1990, there were 14 such tracts in Denver. North Park Hill has seen black births drop from 70 percent of all births in 1990 to 24 percent in 2007. The entire metro area is becoming more integrated. In 2000, 76 percent of the census tracts in the six-county Denver area were majority white births. That dropped to 67 percent seven years later. In 2000, about half of the census tracts were overwhelmingly white, with at least 75 percent of births. In 2007, that fell to 38 percent.Muro and Alan Berube, also of Brookings, believe the Denver area is one of a handful of regions nationally in the forefront of metro-area integration, and the city itself may be one of the first central cities to see the white population make inroads into the Latino population.”I don’t think we’ve reached the point in a lot of other American cities where white births are actually gaining ground on Latino births,” Berube said.The return of white families to Denver is not isolated to one or two neighborhoods. In all, 25 neighborhoods posted an increase in the percentage of white births between 2000 and 2007.Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said the changes reflect the city’s and metro area’s economic diversification.”Twenty years ago, poverty was concentrated in Denver. Now it is dispersed more evenly throughout the metro area, which is ultimately a good thing,” Hickenlooper said. “The more economic mixing there is, generally, the better kids perform.”The biggest changes in Denver were in the northwest sector, Five Points and northeast Denver, the analysis showed.In the northwest, especially the Berkeley and Highland neighborhoods, white births have risen to as high as two-thirds of all births in the traditional Latino neighborhoods.But Denver City Councilman Rick Garcia, who represents northwest Denver, said he has not seen a broad-scale displacement of Latinos by white families.”There’s a mix, and that’s what I think speaks well to maintaining healthy neighborhoods,” Garcia said.Thomas Ogas, president of the Denver-based Latin American Research and Service Agency, agrees.”This is very encouraging to see whites moving into Latino and black neighborhoods. It gives them cross-cultural education,” Ogas said.Other Denver neighborhoods saw a decline in white births and an increase in Latino births this decade, mostly in the southwest. They include Bear Valley and Harvey Park, traditionally white neighborhoods, the analysis showed.Jeff Romine, chief economist with Denver’s Office of Economic Development, said the changes reflect an aging white population moving and selling their homes to younger Latino families.”We can go through every neighborhood and there probably is a story to tell,” Romine said.The transformation has continued across Denver’s border with an influx of minority families into suburban communities.In south Westminster in Adams County, Asian markets sport signs in Spanish advertising fresh fish. A new Rancho Liborio grocery store opened two months ago near West 72nd Avenue and Federal Boulevard.City business development officer John Hall said he is as likely to hear Spanish as English spoken at the nearby Westminster Swim and Fitness Center as he works out.Tony Chacon, Westminster’s revitalization project coordinator, said the increase in Latino population has been gradual over the decade.”It is a suburban enhancement that allows children to have a better life,” Chacon said.Marcos Martinez, who runs the Ricardo Flores Magon Academy in south Westminster, said many of the new Latino residents came from Denver in search of larger, more affordable housing.”It’s definitely changing,” Martinez said. “Part of the reason is, northwest Denver has become so gentrified. A lot of people can’t afford to live there anymore.”Many colors, many languagesAcross the metro area in Aurora, a surging Latino population this decade has intermingled with black and white families in the central part of the city.It is reflected in Scott Alverson’s fifth-grade math class at Tollgate Elementary School south of East Alameda Parkway.About 20 white, Latino and black students are divided into four tables working on how to calculate a cat’s weight and height based on its gender and length of tail.When they gather together on the floor to discuss their answers, the only division is girls on one side and boys on the other.Principal Laurie Godwin said the school is about 46 percent Latino, 16 percent white and 33 percent black.”It’s an advantage to these kids to know what the real world looks like,” Godwin said.Eighteen languages are spoken among the students, and parents, with a click of a mouse, can translate the school’s Web page into 12 different languages, Godwin said.Other school districts, including Adams 14, are working to develop or revamp bilingual education programs to accommodate English-language learners after complaints from parents.Meanwhile, the black community is integrated throughout the metro area, with the largest increases in births this decade in central and south Aurora.As a result, there no longer are any true black neighborhoods.”I blow people away when I talk to groups and I ask them to point to a physical black community in Denver today,” said Denver City Councilman Michael Hancock. “It doesn’t exist.”Political change to followThe demographic changes have political and educational implications for the metro area. In two years, the state will redistrict congressional and state legislative seats.For state House Speaker Terrance Carroll, it will mean major changes for his northeast Denver seat. It is one of the fastest-growing areas in metro Denver as home to Stapleton, Green Valley Ranch and Montbello.”My House district won’t look the same as it does now,” the Democrat said. “It’s going to be interesting how things play out.”Scott Martinez, a lawyer with Holland & Hart who played a key role for Democrats in the 2001 redistricting, said the birth trends will be factor in how the congressional districts will be reshaped, especially the District 7 seat, held by Democrat Ed Perlmutter.Colorado Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams wants to take advantage of the changes to redraw boundaries of all seven congressional districts to make them each competitive in the November elections.”Clearly we’re not going to be gaining a (eighth congressional) seat, so we are going to be tinkering with the lines that already exist,” Wadhams said. “If we wanted, we could create seven truly competitive districts.”But the party controlling the governor’s mansion and the legislature will have the upper hand on redrawing those lines for both federal and state offices. For now, all those offices are controlled by Democrats, making the 2010 elections critical to that process.”First and foremost, they are going to look at population centers,” said Colorado Democratic Party chairwoman Pat Waak. “But there are so many factors to this.”Burt Hubbard: 303-954-5107 or bhubbard@denverpost.com


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