In the NYC borough of Queens, it has recently become the most ethnically diverse county in the United States during the decade of the 1990s; since 1995 is has attracted a wide diversity of immigrants. Most of this attraction is focused on the area built around the elevated 7 train. The area showing the most transformation from this migration has been Jackson Heights. Although mostly coming from Latin American, people from all over the world equally dominate the streets of Jackson Heights with their cultures (Miyares). This rainbow of backgrounds can easily be witnessed by simply by walking from one street to the next; both the contrast and mixture of communities is splendid. A current percentage of different ethnic groups are White (20.2%) Black (6.9%) Asian (19.4%) Hispanic (53.5%) Other (0.0%); all of these adding into a 71.1% of households belonging to immigrants.*
This immigrant movement is also reflected in the current demographic changes for the Jackson Heights area. The population in 1990 was 136,514 and rapidly continued on to a population of 181,370 in 2000, showing a 32.9% population increase within those 10 years. However, housing units have not been able to keep up with this swift accumulation of residents. For 1990 the number of housing units was at 51,385 and moved onto a total of 57,653 for 2000. This only shows a 12.2% increase, not nearly enough to accommodate the immigration upsurge.**
* Jackson Heights CD403. 19 Sept 2007. http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:8BuiyWmfP38J:furmancenter.nyu.edu/CD403.pdf.pdf+jackson+heights+ethnic&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us
** LayerInfo. 19 Sept 2007. http://nychanis.com/NYU/NYCHANIS/Map/Layerinfo.aspx
Miyares, Ines M. From exclusionary covenant to ethnic hyperdiversity in Jackson Heights, Queens. 2004. 19 Sept 2007 http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-11987263_ITM
2 comments:
Once dominated by white Jackson Heights has become well known for its immigrant population. There are many different ethnic groups: Whites, African Americans, Asians, Hispanics and some are even listed as others. However, the housing in Jackson Heights is not enough to accommodate the immigration splurge.
Elizabeth
The main idea of her paragraphs was the mixture of immigrants that have moved to Jackson Heights. She also stated the rapid increase in the population in the past ten years.
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