Since 2000, the number of young children living in parts of Lower Manhattan has nearly doubled. The poverty rate declined in all but one New York City neighborhood. A majority of Bronx residents are Hispanic.
And the number of white people living in Harlem more than tripled, helping to drive up median household income there by nearly 20 percent — the fourth-highest jump in the city.
Those are some of the more striking trends revealed in new census figures that produce the most detailed snapshot of New York City neighborhoods and of the metropolitan area’s smaller cities and towns since the 2000 census.
Many of the findings regarding income, poverty and migration are likely to be affected by the recession, which began about the same time that the latest survey was completed, in December 2007. Demographers said that some of the survey’s brighter spots might well be remembered as the high-water marks of the Wall Street boom.
But by providing detailed demographic information for districts as small as 20,000 people and combining the results of three years of surveys, the findings also provided some of the clearest statistical evidence of trends involving race, ethnicity, education, housing costs and other subjects.
Those trends until now had been suggested for the most part anecdotally.
In almost every category, the results demonstrated the city’s diversity and dynamism. In Sunset Park, Brooklyn, for example, the proportion of residents who do not speak English at home declined by more than 17 percent — an indication of gentrification in a heavily Hispanic and Asian area. But on the southern part of Staten Island, the share rose by 26 percent because of an influx of Chinese and Spanish speakers. (The area already had a significant number of Italian and Russian speakers.)
Since 2000, the Dominican Republic, China and Mexico have sent the most people to New York: 81,000, 77,000 and 69,000. There were also large influxes of immigrants from Bangladesh and Pakistan, and from Ghana and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. (First- and second-generation Africans and Caribbean immigrants now account for about 4 in 10 of the city’s black residents.)
In the Bronx, the flow of Dominicans and Mexicans helped push the Hispanic population past 51 percent.
Over all, the proportion of New Yorkers born abroad remained around 37 percent, the same as in 2000. But the proportion of foreign born who are American citizens passed a tipping point, to 50.8 percent in 2007 from 45 percent in 2000.
Underscoring the growing diversity of the suburbs, the survey found that the median age in Kiryas Joel in Orange County is just over 14 — making it the youngest community in the country with 20,000 or more people. The town’s youthfulness reflects the high birth rates of its Hasidic community.
Lakewood, N.J., an Orthodox Jewish enclave and home to one of the nation’s largest yeshivas, was in second place, with a median age of 20.
Darien and Westport, Conn., were among the wealthiest towns in the country with populations between 20,000 and 65,000, making a list of nine places where the median family income exceeded $150,000. In Darien, it was $195,905; in Westport, $176,740.
The latest results represent a three-year rolling count by the American Community Survey, a continuing profile of the country compiled by the Census Bureau, from 2005 to 2007.
“It was taken on the eve of a downturn,” said Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College, who analyzed the results for The New York Times. “There’s been a shift in the cities, but can it sustain itself? The increase in children in Manhattan, for example, is fueled by the fact that the parents have a lot of money. But that is tied to the financial industry, directly or indirectly.”
Joseph J. Salvo, director of the Department of City Planning’s Population Division, was more sanguine about the potential impact of the recession.
“If 9/11 gives us any experience,” he said, “the dislocation will be of a temporary nature. There may be some changes in migration, but people really like to seek out the city as a destination to live.”
The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey fleshed out earlier and sketchier profiles of the city.
The city, it seems, became better educated. Since 2000, the share of New Yorkers who are high school graduates rose to 79 percent from 72 percent. The share with bachelor’s degrees increased to 32 percent from 27 percent.
The survey estimated that the number of children under 5 in Manhattan increased, the result largely of white people moving into the city or staying to raise families, demographers said. In an area of downtown including portions of Battery Park City, TriBeCa and SoHo, the number of children rose to about 8,000 from about 4,000.
But Mr. Salvo cautioned that the census estimates may have overstated the increase, saying school enrollment and other data do not entirely bear it out. Outside of Manhattan, the number of school-age children has declined, in part because of Hispanic families moving to the suburbs.
The survey found a significant rise in the average size of households, to 2.67 people from 2.59 and in family size, to 3.49 people from 3.32. That increase largely reflects higher fertility rates among newer immigrants, demographers said.
In Fort Greene, Brooklyn, households headed by women declined by 21 percent. In the Rockaways, they rose by 17 percent. In a portion of the West Side of Manhattan, the share of households made up of same-sex unmarried partners increased to 3.6 percent from 2.5 percent.
The increase in median household income in Harlem was propelled by white people — theirs went up by 52 percent. Among Harlem’s black residents, income rose by 9 percent. The only neighborhoods with larger percentage increases in median household income were Park Slope-Cobble Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, and the lower West Side of Manhattan.
Black New Yorkers also recorded increases in median household income in Jamaica, the Rockaways and Richmond Hill, Queens, and in Brownsville and Coney Island, Brooklyn. The survey found that the poverty rate rose in only one neighborhood: Morris Heights in the Bronx, by less than one percentage point.