December 6, 2021, Mayor's Column

Posted on: December 7, 2021 - 11:50am

I attended a very comprehensive analysis of the 2020 Census by Norma Drummond, Commissioner for Planning for Westchester County, which I found surprising at times and overall fascinating and I thought you would feel the same.

At the macro/national level, the US population is now 331,449,281, an addition of 22,703,743 residents translating into a 7.4% increase from the 2010 numbers.

  • National housing units increased by 7.4% to 140,498,736.
  • In population, New York ranks 4th with a rounded number of 20 million residents behind leader California at 39 million followed by 29 million Texans and the ever rising number of Floridians at 21 million. The numbers then fall off precipitously to 13 million residents of Pennsylvania.
  • Westchester County, with a population of 1,400,457, ranks 48th by county nationwide with Pima County, Arizona and Fresno County California just in front of us.
  • In New York State, Westchester ranks well behind Nassau, Suffolk, Queens and Manhattan counties, all of whom are out paced by Brooklyn with a population of 2.7 million people. The New York City metro area is home to 14 million people while the rest of the state has 6 million residents.
  • Westchester County outpaced New York State population growth as an aggregate, up 55,344 people to 1,400,457 representing a 5.8% increase.
  • Westchester’s Hispanic population grew 30.1% versus New York State’s increase of 15.5%.
  • The County’s black population of 131,010 represents a drop from 13.3% to 13% while the State as a whole lost .9% in black representation and Brooklyn lost 8.7% of its black residents. Mt. Vernon has the greatest black population by percentage of residents in Westchester at 60.4%, followed by Peekskill at 18.5%, New Rochelle at 18% and Elmsford at 17.8%.
  • Westchester’s adult population (18 and above) is now 77.8% of the County’s population.
  • The current Asian population in Westchester is 64,907 adding 13,700 new residents equating to a 2% increase. The greatest increases in new Asian residents were seen in Scarsdale, Ardsley and Greenburgh. Yonkers has the most Asian Americans with 12,915 while Buchanan has the least at 64. Taken in total, in the ten years between censuses, Westchester’s Asian population increased from 5.4% to 6.5% of county residents even though there were decreases in Mount Kisco, Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown.
  • Housing units increased in the County by 4.9% with the greatest additions in Ossining Village, Somers and Elmsford.
  • Westchester’s Hispanic population of 269,334 represents a 30.1% increase in ten years. Lead by Portchester with 65.3% of its residents of Hispanic heritage; it is followed by Peekskill at 43.9% and Elmsford at 43.7%. In total, 26.8% of Westchester’s residents are Hispanic.
  • As a result of all the above population shifts in the last ten years, Westchester has no majority population with 50% identifying as non-white.
  • Three communities; Port Chester, Sleepy Hollow and Peekskill are so named minority majority municipalities.
  • Westchester’s largest community and fourth largest in the State is Yonkers with 211,569 residents up 8% since the last census followed by New Rochelle at 70,726, up by 3.5%, Mount Vernon up 9.8% to 73,893, White Plains up 4.8% to 59,559 and Greenburgh at 46,430, up a healthy 8.3%.
  • The densest municipalities are Mount Vernon with a density of 6,821 people per square mile of its 4.39 square miles followed by Port Chester with an area of 2.33 square miles and a density of 13,613 and then our neighbors in Tuckahoe with a density of 11,787 people per square mile in their just .60 square miles.
  • At the Village level, population grew with the addition of 333 residents or a 5.3% uptick which was consistent with the County average: Village Group 3, so named by the census system, which covers the area west of the Metro North station had the highest growth rate at 18.5%, adding 161 people.  The Hispanic and/or Latino population in that zone doubled to 11%: Following right behind in terms of growth was census block labeled Group 1, which is just east of the Metro North train station and north of downtown encompassing the Sagamore/Kensington area with a population increase of 15.9%. The only section in the Village to show a population loss was the area around Concordia College which was entirely due to the decrease in the dormitory population.
  • Census data in the aggregate for Bronxville is 6,656 residents, 5323 who classify themselves as white only. Multiracial identification increased from 103 to 358 residents, while Asian residents increased from 327 to 513 from the 2010 Census.
  • Our only category of decrease was in our Black population from 82 to 34.
  • We have 2,505 housing units representing a 3.1% increase from 2010’s number of 2,430 with an occupancy rate of 93% which was level with the 2010 analysis.
  • Our voting age population stayed relatively constant from the 2010 number of 4,388 residents to 4,671 residents in the 2020 count, representing 70.2% of our Village population.