Bronx Population Through Time
The following graphs place the population of the Bronx in context. It is important to pay attention to the sharp drop in the general population of the Bronx that began around 1975. These were rough years for the residents of the Bronx. The years have been described as the "white flight" and "fire years." This was a time when jobs became scarce in the New York area, the majority of the non-Hispanic White residents of the Bronx left for places outside the city. Also landlords, and in some cases tenants, began to torch buildings to collect insurance. The end result was that the Bronx (especially the South Bronx) acquired a reputation as an inhospitable place, where population declined, and large sectors were abandoned and decayed.
The second
graph vividly shows the dramatic decrease in the non-Hispanic White population
of the Bronx. In forty years, begining in 1960, the non-Hispanic White
population decreased by almost 900,000. It is interesting to note that
while the non-Hispanic White population drastically decreased both the
Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black populations continuously increased during
the same period.
What has been happening with the general population and other races (Non-Hispanic Whites and Blacks) while Hispanics have been growing during the last forty years?
By the middle of the 1980s the population of the Bronx begins to rebound
aided by new flows of immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa,
Asia, and certain countries in Europe—like Ireland and the former
Yugoslavia.