If you, like my parents, enjoying talking about how Austin has changed since “your day,” you needn’t rely just on anecdotes anymore.

With the release of the first round of 2010 Census data for Austin, the city’s Demographer Ryan Robinson has been taking his scintillatingly titled show – Austin’s Changing Demographics and Growing Equity Gaps – on the road.

He has spoken already to groups like the Austin Young Chamber of Commerce, and I caught the act Thursday at an event at the University of Texas Law School. On April 21, he will take his show to the Long Center, if you’re interested in hearing the full presentation.

The overreaching theme boils down to this: Austin is growing and diversifying in positive ways, but because of that there is a real risk of people and issues being lost.

And what are some of those changes?

1. Thinning, aging urban center:
   Robinson said he was surprised to see in the 2010 Census that the majority of the growth in Austin was suburban, and what urban growth was there was patchy. Demographics often talk about “Metropolitan Statistical Area,” which is the area that contributes to Austin and surrounds Austin, but includes many areas that are not actually a part of the city, such as Round Rock and Cedar Park.
   In the 2010 Census, for the first time, the actual population of Austin made up less than half of the total population in the Metropolitan Statistical Area. Or, simply, Austin hasn’t grown as fast as its neighbors. When you talk about growth just in Austin, 71 percent of that growth was in the suburbs from 2000 to 2010, Robinson said. And of those who live in the center of town, youth is rare.
2. Austin is losing black population to the ‘burbs:
   The black population of just the city of Austin – not including the Metropolitan Statistical Area – was down in the 2010 Census for the first time ever, Robinson said. BUT, these people aren’t completely ditching Austin. The black population grew in the Metropolitan Statistical Area, meaning it’s part of the greater problem of the shrinking urban center.
   “Black flight is not descriptive of Austin’s situation because it’s not that they have poured out of the city, but that those who are relocating to the area are going to Round Rock, Cedar Park, etc.,” Robinson said.
3. If you’re young in Austin, you’re probably Hispanic:
   According to Robinson’s info about the under 18 population of Austin, if you identify with one race it’s probably going to be Hispanic. The numbers show that 32 percent of Austinites under 18 are Hispanic, compared with 14 percent white, 24 percent black and 20 percent Asian. (34 percent of the under 18 population falls into an “other” category that includes multiracial people and other smaller racial groups.)
4. Austin middle class options have left the city, and it’s hurting the social ladder:
   Middle class families with children are shifting to the suburbs. The ultimate impact of that on the rest of the population, Robinson said, is you have the high and low extremes in the city itself. But if a working class family wants to move up a rung on the social ladder, they don’t have affordable home or life options in the middle class sector to move to.
   “If you picture it as a ladder, if the rungs above the working class families are removed, then they can’t get to the city. If you’re working class and want to get up to middle class, and those middle class options aren’t available in the city, you end up living out in Hutto. And then they get it with transportation costs,” he said.
   “I worry about if things keep going up and all of a sudden they are paying 20 percent of their income in transportation.”
5. Austinites can make good money, but mostly if they’re white, or maybe Asian:
   Austin ranks No. 6 of cities in the country in terms of median family income, which seems like a really good stat for the city. Except that the income gap is huge and propped up by the white people who make way more money than most other racial groups. The median family income for “anglos” in Austin is around $91,000, according to Robinson. Asians don’t fare too badly, coming in at around $86,000. But the median income for black families in $39,000, and $34,000 for Hispanic families.
   Robinson again pointed out that some of this again has to do with people living in the suburbs, for example, in Williamson County the median income for black families is over $60,000. But it’s not good news for Austin.
6. That income gap, it looks worse on a map:
   If you look at a map of Austin, there is a growing and clear divide in geographic terms between the have nots. Robinson described the west stretch of Austin, Westlake and Travis County “an island of affluence,” where the vast majority earn at least $125,000 a year.
   Compare that with the East Side, and also the south and northeast portions of town, where the income range is more in the $30,000 or less range.
   And this geographic income gap leads to No. 7, which is …
7. The economic divide comes out in a huge political divide:
   In the same way Robinson showed a map that showed a West/East divide the wealthy and the struggling, he then showed a map that showed the strong West/East divide between Republicans and Democrats. There are essentially two Travis Counties when it comes to political beliefs, Robinson said.
   “You have a hardcore Democratic core along the east side and Republicans on the West in Travis County, and the dividing line is roughly MoPac,” he said.
   And speaking of politics …
8. City election turnouts have already led to the council being practically single-member districts:
   In the last council election, about 13 percent of registered voters turned out. The central corridor around the urban center, however, had as much as 30 percent of registered voters turnout in many areas. In the east, south and northeast sections of town, voter turnout generally ranged from less than 5 percent to around 10 percent. The result is that the group with central Austin concerns has the largest voice in who is elected. “Right now, a city council person in Austin answers to more people than our congressmen, which is interesting,” Robinson said, though he said he was “agnostic” when it comes to recent talk about a switch to single-member districts.

Image courtesy of City of Austin.