MoCo: More Diverse Than You Think

The prior posts in this series have sought to dispel the notion that Montgomery County is universally rich. This post attacks another misconception – that the county is monolithically white. The twin beliefs that Montgomery County is both wealthy and white make it a convenient target for politicians in other parts of the state. Both beliefs are completely wrong.

According to the Census of 2000, Maryland had 5,296,486 residents. Of them, 3.3 million were white non-Hispanic, 1.5 million were black non-Hispanic, 210,000 were Asian non-Hispanic, 104,000 were two or more races and 228,000 were Hispanic (of any race). Foreign-born residents topped half a million. Large percentages of each of the non-white groups lived in Montgomery County. Below we show demographic distributions for the state and its six largest jurisdictions. The column “MoCo Rank” refers to how the county ranks on the number of people in each category when compared to other Maryland counties.


Whites
Montgomery had 16.5% of the state’s total population but only 15.8% of its white population. Even though its total population was 15.8% larger than Baltimore County’s, Montgomery actually had fewer white residents (519,318 vs. 533,980). Montgomery’s white percentage (59.5%) is lower than the state average (62.1%).

Blacks
Montgomery has fewer black residents than Prince George’s County, Baltimore City and Baltimore County. But its black percentage (14.8%) is still higher than the national average (12.1%).

Asians
Forty-seven percent of all Asian residents of Maryland live in Montgomery County. Put another way, more Asians live in Montgomery than in Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Howard County and Prince George’s County combined.

Hispanics
Forty-four percent of all Hispanic residents of Maryland live in Montgomery County. Montgomery’s Hispanic population is nearly equal to the combined Hispanic population of the next five most-populated jurisdictions.

Two or More Races
Again, Montgomery leads the state with 29% of all Maryland multi-racial residents.

Foreign Born
Forty-five percent of all foreign-born residents of Maryland live in Montgomery County, nearly equal to the next five jurisdictions combined. Montgomery leads the state in the number of foreign-born residents from every region of the world.

Non-English Spoken at Home
Forty-one percent of all residents that do not speak English at home live in Montgomery County. The percentages of all state residents who do not speak English who live in Montgomery are highest for Chinese speakers (58%), Arabic speakers (42%), Korean speakers (41%) and Spanish speakers (41%). For each of the eight language groups we examined, Montgomery had more residents than any other jurisdiction in Maryland except for African language speakers (where Prince George’s had a slight lead) and Russian speakers (nearly half of whom lived in Baltimore County).

Again and again, Montgomery County finished first or second (usually first) in terms of the number of minority residents for almost every group we looked at. The data is irrefutable: Montgomery is the most diverse county in Maryland, and possibly one of the most diverse jurisdictions anywhere in the United States.

So dies another myth. And we have killed a number of them recently. In May, we showed how Montgomery County has tremendous income inequality, with the richest neighborhoods enjoying a growing gap with the poorest. In this series, we showed how nominally high incomes in Montgomery are swallowed by high housing and gas prices. We showed one of the consequences of our inability to keep up with the cost of living: foreclosures. And we demonstrated here how Montgomery is far, far more diverse than any other county in Maryland.

We are not all white and wealthy. We are multitudes of different cultures and races, many of whom are struggling to get by just like everyone else.

And it is time for the Lords of Annapolis to relearn everything they think they know about us.