The Inland area consisting of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties qualifies as one of the most racially diverse regions in the nation, according to a recently completed demographic study by sociologists at the University of Southern California published March 15.
California already qualifies as the most
Survey Defines SB County As Particularly Racially Diverseracially and ethnically mixed state in the nation. Within Southern California and the five-counties of Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino, the latter two counties are the most diverse, with 81 percent of Riverside County cities and 71 percent of San Bernardino County cities defined as “multiethnic.”
Surprisingly, in Los Angeles County, which is home to the city of Los Angeles – widely considered one of the most cosmopolitan of the world’s major population centers – 53 percent of its cities meet the multiethnic criteria, which is well below San Bernardino County. In both Orange and Ventura counties, 60 percent of their cities are recognized as multiethnic.
To be defined as multiethnic, a city’s second largest ethnic group had to compose at least 20 percent of the population or have three different races or ethnicities make up at least 15 percent of the population, or otherwise have its fourth largest group represent at least 8 percent of the population.
The study made further distinctions as to the blend of cultures, race and ethnicity, creating categories that measured the level of diversity, such as “three-way” and “four-way” multiracial cities. Four-way cities, which were defined as the most racially balanced, had a population wherein the largest of the city’s racial and ethnic groups did not exceed 55 percent and the fourth largest group was no less than 8 percent
Of the 182 incorporated cities in the five counties, 13 were considered four-way, with three of those – Rancho Cucamonga, Loma Linda and Highland – in San Bernardino County.
The statistics for the study, entitled “Racially Balanced Cities in Southern California, 1999 to 2010,” were compiled by USC students and professors working within the PopDynamics Research Group in the Sol Price School of Public Policy, based upon data provided in the 2010 census. The work was overseen by USC professor of demographics, Dowell Myers.
An ironic finding of the study was that some cities are now so heavily Hispanic that they failed to obtain the multiethnic label. Colton, with a population of 52,154; San Bernardino, with a population of 209,924; Rialto, with a population of 99,171; and Fontana, with a 196,069 all have Latino populations exceeding 60 percent and all other ethnic groups in those cities were less that 20 percent of their respective head counts. Both San Bernardino and Riverside counties had the largest increases in Hispanics between 2000 and 2010 of any U.S. metropolitan areas.
The incorporated towns of Yucca Valley and Apple Valley, both of which have sizeable Caucasian populations, were not considered multiethnic.
In San Bernardino County overall, 49.2 percent of the population is Hispanic, 33.3 percent is Caucasian, 8.4 percent is African-American, 6.1 percent is Asian, 0.4 percent is Indian, and 0.3 percent is Islander. Those cataloging themselves as other are 0.2 percent and 2.1 percent say they fit in two of the categories.