2000 CENSUS Population trend continues in Valley

Boardman has the area's largest Asian population.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Mahoning Valley's suburban and rural communities are still overwhelmingly white, while blacks make up large percentages of residents in Youngstown and Warren, according to U.S. Census figures.
"It's following a trend we've had in place for the last 30 years or so," said Dr. Gil Peterson, former head of Youngstown State University's Center for Urban Studies. "We don't have anything here that's unusual."
Larger numbers of blacks and Hispanics tend to live in urban areas, where the housing is less expensive, Peterson said.
Youngstown and Warren: In Mahoning County, 87.9 percent of all blacks live in Youngstown.
The 35,937 blacks in Youngstown make up 43.8 percent of the city's population, compared with 36,474, or 38.1 percent, in 1990.
About 15,000 whites left Youngstown in the past decade. Of the city's 82,026 people, 41,737 -- or 50.9 percent -- are white, compared with 56,769, or 59.3 percent of the city's population in 1990.
Also, 4,282 are Hispanic. The rest listed either American Indian/Alaska native, Asian, Pacific Islander, biracial or other on their census forms.
The number of blacks in Warren increased by about 9 percent during the past decade to 11,802. Blacks make up 25.2 percent of that city's population. Also, 66.4 of the 17,778 blacks in Trumbull County live in Warren.
Of the 46,832 people in Warren, 33,690 are white. There are 485 Hispanics in the city and 195 Asians.
Suburbs: But in the suburbs, it's a different story.
Of the 31,627 people counted in Austintown, 29,258 are white. There are 1,610 blacks, 578 Latinos and 186 Asians in the township.
Of the 37,215 people in Boardman, 35,448 are white. There are 951 blacks, 670 Latinos and 302 Asians. Boardman has the largest Asian population of any Valley community.
Of Columbiana's 5,635 people, only 82 are minorities. Of Cortland's 6,830 people, 214 are minorities. There are 38 minorities among Craig Beach's 1,254 residents. East Palestine has 110 minorities among its 4,917 residents.
Besides Youngstown and Warren, Campbell is the only area in the Valley with a relatively strong mix of ethnic groups even though it is still overwhelmingly white.
In fact, Campbell, which has one-fifth of Warren's population, has more than twice the number of Hispanics compared with that Trumbull County city.
Of Campbell's 9,460 people, 7,304 are white, 1,579 are black and 1,038 are Hispanic.
In Ohio, 85 percent of the population is white, a 2.8 decrease from 1990. The state's black population has increased to 12 percent from 10.6 percent in 1990. The state's Asian population increased from 0.8 percent in 1990 to 1.4 percent in 2000 and its Hispanic population increased from 1.3 percent in 1990 to 1.9 percent in 2000.