Our Neighborhood

Environmental Scan For Near North Minneapolis

    This report was prepared at the request of the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center by Allan Malkis of the Census Project. No portions of this report should be reproduced or reprinted without attribution to the Census Project or the Urban Coalition.

    The Urban Coalition and Wilder Research Center are cooperating on a joint project to provide grass-roots, community organizations with access to 1990 Census information. Our purpose is to give citizens, neighborhood groups and other organizations information that can help them organize their communities, plan projects and gain financial support. The project will specialize in information about low income people, communities of color and center city neighborhoods in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Both Wilder Research Center and The Urban Coalition have access to computerized Census data and sophisticated computer mapping.

    In addition to answering requests for data, project staff will also meet with grass roots organizations to offer assistance and develop the groups' capacity to use information. Community and neighborhood groups would define their concerns. Then, project staff can suggest ways that Census data could be useful in addressing those issues.

    Both organizations will produce research reports based on the 1990 Census data describing trends and analyzing specific issues. These reports will be available later this year.

    Organizations interested in obtaining 1990 Census information are encouraged to call project staff Laura Lambert at Wilder Research (647-4606) and/or Allan Malkis at The Urban Coalition (348-8550).

Executive Summary

    The six neighborhoods of Near North Minneapolis (see map on page ii) have experienced major changes since 1980. These changes have affected the racial composition of the neighborhoods, the economic situation of the residents and their housing opportunities. This summary briefly profiles the major changes and draws some conclusions from the census data.

    Perhaps the most significant change of the decade was the arrival in Sumner-Glenwood of a large Southeast Asian refugee population. These new residents live primarily in public housing units concentrated in that neighborhood. Faced with an unfamiliar language, lack of skills and formal education, many of these newcomers live in poverty and rely heavily on public assistance programs. Interestingly, Asian youth in 1990 had relatively low numbers of high school dropouts.

    It is also important to note that the Near North community is less the center of the African American community than it had been in 1980. The area was home to 38% of Minneapolis' African Americans in 1980, but only 33% in 1990, despite an increase in African American residents over the decade.

    The six neighborhoods differ amongst themselves in significant ways. Poverty rates increased drastically in Harrison and moderately in the rest, except for Willard-Hay. Correspondingly, the percent of adults employed dropped in all neighborhoods except Willard-Hay, where it increased. Jordan and Willard-Hay neighborhoods continue to have good employment rates, relatively low poverty levels and moderate rates of single parent families with children. These two neighborhoods also have the highest percentages of homeowners. It is worth noting that Jordan is predominately White (65%) while Willard-Hay has an African American majority (65%).

    Poverty has increased significantly since 1980 in Near North Minneapolis. At the same time, educational attainment is up among adults age 25 and older, while the percentage of youth age 16-19 who were out of school without graduating has declined. Part of the increase in poverty rates may be due to the increase in the refugee population, but this is not the whole story. The figures here suggest that we look carefully at any assumption that an increase in the overall level of educational attainment will lead automatically to economic success. It may be that poverty has risen considerably among those with less education, even though they represent a smaller percentage of the population.

Population by Race

    The Minneapolis population decreased by over 2,500 during the decade, but the population of color increased by 32,300. The majority of the increase came in the African American community, whose numbers went up nearly 20,000 to 48,000. The Asian population also grew by nearly 10,000 during the decade.

    Between 1980 and 1990, the population of the Near North community changed significantly in racial make up. The total population of Near North Minneapolis (the six neighborhoods south of Lowry Avenue) grew by 4.5 percent or 1500 persons between 1980 and 1990, while the percentage of people of color rose from 40 percent to over 61 percent. The White population declined by 6,700, while the Asian population more than tripled from near 1,000 to over 3,800. The African American population also increased by 4,600. Despite this increase, the community's share of Minneapolis' total African American population declined from 38% to 33%. This means that even more African Americans moved into other parts of the city than North Minneapolis.

Table 1.NEIGHBORHOOD POPULATIONS BY RACE, 1990

    The six neighborhoods in the community reflect this pattern of changing population (see Chart 1, above). Jordan and Hawthorne have a majority of White residents (64% and 53%), while African Americans are the largest racial group in Harrison, Near North and Willard Hay. In Sumner Glenwood, over 95% of the residents are people of color, nearly two thirds of them being Asian Americans. This is a major change since 1980, when there were no Asian/Pacific Islanders in the neighborhood. Sumner-Glenwood has changed from being 80% African American in 1980 to being primarily Southeast Asian in 1990. The number of African American residents in that neighborhood dropped from 1,626 to 965 during the decade. The change in percentage reflects both an increase in Southeast Asian population and a decrease in African American residents.

    The chart below shows that the largest population change occurred in Sumner-Glenwood, which increased its population by over 1,000.

Table 2.POPULATION CHANGES, 1980-1990 BY NEIGHBORHOOD

Poverty

    The official poverty level is based on both household income and the number of people in the household. For example, in 1990 a family of four (2 adults, 2 children) was considered poor if their total household income was under $12,575. For a single parent with one child, the poverty level was $8,547.

    Although the population of Minneapolis has stabilized, the number of low-income people living in the city has grown dramatically. The total population declined very slightly, but the number of people living below the poverty level went from 48,000 to nearly 66,000. Over 18% of all Minneapolis residents were living in poverty in 1990.

    When we look at North Minneapolis, we see the same tendencies. In 1970, there were five census tracts in this community where over 25% of the residents lived in poverty. In 1980, there were two more, and by 1990 there were another four for a total of eleven. By 1990, there were only two census tracts out of thirteen in this community with poverty rates under 25%. The 1990 poverty rates for Near North Minneapolis residents are:

Whites - 18%, up from 15% in 1980
African Americans - 46%, up from 39%
American Indians - 44%, up from 34%
Asian-Pacific Islanders - 76%, up from 67%

    For children under 6 in this community, the poverty rate is 63 percent. For children age 6 to 11, the rate is still 49 percent. For children of color, the rates are higher yet. The table below gives the poverty rates for children of each race in the Near North community.

Table 3.CHILD POVERTY RATES BY RACE, 1990 ALL CHILDREN UNDER AGE 18

    Poverty statistics are high and growing in most of the six neighborhoods. The chart below shows the change from 1980 to 1990 in the percentage of residents living in poverty for each neighborhood. The greatest jump in the poverty rate occurred in Harrison, which went from under 20% to over 50% poor in the decade. The least change occurred in Willard Hay, which has the lowest poverty rate (22.6%). Three of four residents of Sumner-Glenwood neighborhood, which includes a large number of public housing units, are living in poverty.

Table 4. POVERTY RATES BY NEIGHBORHOOD, 1980-1990

Employment

    How many adults in the Near North community were employed in 1980 and 1990? What percent of the adult population age 16-64 were working? The statistics show that Minneapolis as a whole had an employment rate of 75 percent for adults age 16-64 in both census years. The Near North community had noticeably lower employment rates in 1980 (61%) and 1990 (57%). As the chart below shows, there was considerable difference among the employment rates for the six neighborhoods. Sumner-Glenwood, composed mostly of public housing units, had employment rates of 21 percent in 1980 and 15 percent in 1990. Other neighborhood rates ranged from 63 to 70 percent in 1980 and from 46 to 67 percent in 1990.

    The changes between 1980 and 1990 in some neighborhoods were dramatic. In 1980, Harrison had an employment rate of 63 percent, fourth among the neighborhoods and above the Near North community rate of 61 percent. By 1990, the percentage of employed adults age 16 to 64 in Harrison was down to 52 percent, a drop of 11 points. In contrast, the employment rate rose slightly for Willard Hay, from 64 percent in 1980 to 67 percent in 1990.

Table 5. EMPLOYMENT RATES BY NEIGHBORHOOD, 1980-1990

    Why use the Employment Rate instead of the Unemployment Rate? The unemployment rate is a commonly used statistic that gives one picture of employment in a city or neighborhood. It compares the number of people who have a job to the number of people who are looking for work or working. This definition leaves out people who are not in the labor force, that is, folks who have given up looking for work or who don't register with the unemployment office. In contrast, the employment rate takes the entire population and tells us what percent are actually working.

    For comparison, lets look at the employment and unemployment rates for the six neighborhoods in 1990.

Table 6. TWO LOOKS AT EMPLOYMENT RATES BY NEIGHBORHOOD, 1990

    The Employment Rate 1 figure shows us that only 15% of the adults in the Sumner-Glenwood neighborhood are working. By leaving out people who are not looking for work (not in the official labor force), the official Employment Rate 2 tells us that 62% of potential workers in Sumner-Glenwood have jobs. The 47 percentage point difference occurs because there are many unemployed people who are not looking for work and thus don't get included in the official figures as potential workers. Neither statistic is wrong, they just give different views of the same picture, and emphasize different ways of looking at what's happening in the city.

    Employment rates are not the same for residents of all races. In 1990, residents of color were much less likely than White residents to be employed. The table below shows the number of adults age 16 and over who were working, unemployed or not in the labor force for the Near North community by race. Calculating the traditional employment statistics concludes that only 7.2% of African Americans were unemployed (255 of 3,553). But a look at the number of adults not in the labor force shows that only half of all adult African Americans (3,298 or 50.7%) in Near North community were working in 1990, compared to nearly 60 percent of all White adults. Overall, less than half of adult residents of color had jobs in 1990 (46.8%), compared to an official employment rate of nearly 84 percent. Again, those without jobs include both people unable to find work and others who cannot work or who have chosen to attend school or stay home with a family, rather than seek a job.

Table 7.EMPLOYMENT STATUS BY RACE, 1990 ADULTS AGE 16 AND OVER

Single Parent Families

    Over the past 10 years there has been an increase in both the number and percent of single parent families. Since 1980, the number of single parent families in Minneapolis has increased from 21,635 to 25,687, making up 15.9 percent of all households in the city. During the same decade, single parent families have grown from 26.1 percent of all families to 33.1 percent. In the Near North community, the total number of single parent households was 3,300 in 1990, representing 27.5 percent of all households and 42.3 percent of all families in the community. Both figures are well above the average for the entire city. The only other community with a higher rate of single parent families was Phillips where 51.9 percent of all families were single parents with children. The chart below shows the statistics for the six individual neighborhoods.

Table 8.NUMBER OF SINGLE PARENT FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN AS A PERCENT OF ALL HOUSEHOLDS AND FAMILIES

    At the same time, the neighborhoods in Near North have one of the highest percentages of households which are families in the city. While the overall share of households in Minneapolis which are families has declined from 51.3 percent to 48.3 percent since 1980, the family household share in the Near North community was 65 percent in 1990. This was the highest of all eleven communities in the city.

    The table below shows that the percent of households which are single parent families with children is highest among African Americans and American Indians in the Near North Community.

Table 9.SINGLE PARENT FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN BY RACE IN NEAR NORTH COMMUNITY, 1990

    Are single parent families bad for children? There is considerable disagreement. Some say that children are harmed by growing up without both a father and mother in the household. Others say the major problem is not the lack of two parents but the high poverty rates for single parents with children. If a single parent had adequate income, their family would be equally safe and nurturing for children.

    How many children live in these single parent families? In Minneapolis as a whole, 36.3 percent of all children under age 18 are living in single parent families. In the Near North community, the comparable percentage is 46%, considerably higher. But this community rate masks significant differences among neighborhoods. As the chart on the next page shows, three of the six neighborhoods (Jordan, Sumner-Glenwood and Willard Hay) have rates similar to the city average, while the other three have much higher percentages of children living with only one parent.

Table 10.TOTAL CHILDREN UNDER 18 IN ONE PARENT FAMILIES NUMBER AND PERCENT, BY NEIGHBORHOOD, 1990

Children of Working Parents

    Many children live in families where all of the adults work. This means that even in a two parent family children often have no adults around during the day for support and assistance. The number and percentage of children whose adult caregivers are all working is one indicator of a need for support services such as child care, latch key programs, and other assistance. The presence of working parents is obviously related to unemployment rates and overall family wealth. An area with high unemployment is likely to have fewer families with working parents. Families with high wealth may have less need for two incomes and therefore have lower numbers of working parent families.

    In the city of Minneapolis, 55 percent of all children under age 6 live in households where all of the parents present are working. For children age 6 to 17, the figure is 65.1 percent. In Near North, the figures are 37.2 percent and 52.3 percent. As the chart below shows, however, there is a wide range of figures among the six neighborhoods. Hawthorne and Jordan have percentages of children in working parent families close to those for the city as a whole. Sumner-Glenwood has the lowest rate, because most of the families there are headed by unemployed parents receiving public assistance.

Table 11.NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN WORKING PARENT FAMILIES, BY AGE OF CHILDREN AND NEIGHBORHOOD, 1990

Education Levels of Adults Age 25 and Over

    In 1980, just under three quarters of Minneapolis residents age 25 and over were high school graduates. Of these, 55,118 (24% of the total) had attended college. Residents of the Near North community were less likely to be high school graduates (59% to 75%), but equally likely to have attended college (24%). In 1990, about 83% of city residents were high school graduates, and 57% had attended college. Among Near North community residents, the comparable figures were 65% high school graduates and 33% who attended college. The most obvious change is that while both populations have higher percentages of high school graduates in 1990 than 1980, Near North residents have fallen far behind in college attendance.

    The chart below shows that the percentage of high school graduates and college attenders among residents of each neighborhood was higher in 1990 than in 1980 in 1990 than in 1980, except in Sumner-Glenwood. Despite this increase in educational attainment, however, we know that poverty has actually increased in each neighborhood.

Table 12.EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT BY NEIGHBORHOOD, 1980-1990

High School Dropouts

    The 1990 census reported that in the Near North community there were 445 youth age 16-19 who were not enrolled in school and had not graduated from high school. This represented 21% of all youth in that age group. In comparison, there were 1,650 youth dropouts in the rest of the city, accounting for 11% of those in the age group. That means that the percentage of dropouts in Near North Minneapolis was nearly twice as high as the remainder of the city.

Table 13.COMPARATIVE DROPOUT STATUS OF YOUTH IN NEAR NORTH MINNEAPOLIS, 1990

    Among the six neighborhoods, the 1990 dropout percentages ranged from a low of 15% in Willard Hay to a high of 27% in Jordan. Interestingly, these dropout rates are lower than those from 1980 (see Table 12, below). At that time, dropout percentages ranged from 23 to 35%, with over one third of the youth age 16-19 in Hawthorne, Jordan and Sumner Glenwood out of school without having graduated. For the city as a whole, the percent of 16-19 year olds out of school without graduating was 16% in 1980, compared to 12% in 1990. Outside the Near North community, the dropout rate decreased from 14% in 1980 to 11% a decade later.

Table 14. HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT RATES AMONG YOUTH AGE 16-19 BY NEIGHBORHOOD, 1980-1990

    The high school dropout rate among youth of color in the Near North community is lower than that among White youth. The table below shows that the dropout rates are highest among American Indian and White youth. These figures do not fit the assumptions we have about dropout rates among students of color (see next section) and may be due to sampling error in the census figures. It seems safe to conclude, however, that African American and Asian youth in the Near North community are not dropping out of high school at higher rates than White youth. Note that the census figures are not the same as annual public school dropout statistics, which may show a different picture.

Table 15. HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT RATES AMONG YOUTH AGE 16-19 BY RACE, NEAR NORTH COMMUNITY, 1990

Children of Color In the Education System

    The current education system in Minneapolis can be likened to a pipeline, which progressively filters out certain students while others proceed to completion. Statistics show that, in Minneapolis, children of color are more likely to be filtered out at every step. Even during pre-school years, White children are considerably more likely to be enrolled in a program than children of color (47 percent to 29 percent). Scores on standardized tests show that children of color are half as likely to score above the national median in reading during the 2nd to 6th grade years. Similarly, only 71 percent of 9th grade African American students pass the reading competency exams, compared to 93 percent of Whites. In mathematics, only 62 percent of African American 9th graders pass the competency exam, compared to 92 percent of White students.

    The school system is consistently failing students of color. The benchmark and competency tests are used to "track" students into different sets of courses and expectations. Those labeled as in need of remedial classes have much less opportunity to acquire the academic skills needed for higher education. The high teen age dropout rates and lower educational achievement among adults reflect these limited opportunities.

    For more information on the educational system in Minneapolis and St. Paul, see the recent report Children of Color: A Wake-up Call to the Community released by the Communities of Color Program.

Languages Spoken

    In 1980, there were just under 2,000 residents of Near North community (6.5%) who spoke a language other than English at home. Of these, 232 or under 1% of the total community said they spoke English poorly or not at all. These figures were similar toä those for the city as a whole (see chart 1). By 1990, the percentage of Near Northä residents who spoke another language at home was double the 1980 figure, and theä number speaking English poorly or not at all had increased 1,000%. The Near Northä figures were double those for the city as a whole in both categories.

Table 16.NON-ENGLISH SPEAKERS, 1980-1990

    A major reason for this, of course, was the increased population of Southeast Asians. As the next table shows, there were nearly 1,600 Sumner Glenwood residents whoä spoke Southeast Asian languages at home by 1990. Most of these(1,325 or 83%)ä spoke English poorly. These Southeast Asian language speakers in Sumnerä Glenwood represent half of all those who spoke English poorly across the sixä neighborhoods.

Table 17.SOUTHEAST ASIAN LANGUAGE SPEAKERS BY NEIGHBORHOOD, 1990

Home Ownership

    The proportion of homes in Minneapolis that are owner occupied actually increased slightly from 49.2 percent in 1980 to 49.7 percent in 1990. In Near North, the proportion declined slightly from 46.7% in 1980 to 43.2 percent in 1990. The figure for the community again masks major differences between neighborhoods. As the chartä indicates, there are almost no owner occupied homes in Sumner-Glenwood, but bothä Jordan and Willard Hay have high numbers and rates of home ownership. Theä proportion of owners declined slightly in all but Sumner-Glenwood and Willard Hayä over the decade.

Table 18.NUMBER AND PERCENT OF HOME OWNERS, 1980-1990

Overcrowded Housing

    Housing experts say that a home is overcrowded if there are more than one person for every room in the housing unit. Minneapolis has 4,459 crowded rental housing units, accounting for 5.5 percent of all rental units. Nearly 30 percent of these crowded units (1,321) are located in Near North, representing 19 percent of all rental units in that community. The chart below shows that over 20 percent of all rental units in Harrison and Willard Hay are overcrowded, along with 43.8 percent of those in the Sumner-Glenwood neighborhood. The high figures for Sumner-Glenwood probably reflect theä concentration of Southeast Asian households, which usually have a high number ofä persons per family.

Table 19. CROWDED RENTAL HOUSING UNITS, 1990