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Another way to see these figures is to notice that about 40% of the growth in the metropolitan population in the last decade was due to the increase in the number of foreign-born persons. Despite this spectacular growth overall, immigrants are spread very unevenly around the country, and very large sections of the United States still are relatively untouched by immigration.  There are many metropolitan areas where immigrants are notably missing.  Among the 50 largest metros, nine have less than 5% immigrants among their residents.  These include six in the Midwest: Cincinnati and Pittsburgh (both only 2.6% immigrant), St. Louis, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Columbus.  The other three are in the South: Norfolk, Nashville, and New Orleans.  

Table 2.  Native and immigrant populations in metropolitan areas

 

Total

U.S.-born

Foreign-born

 

1990

2000

1990

2000

1990

2000

White

145,233,383

149,091,035

139,472,419

142,682,117

5,751,303

6,408,918

 

 

 

96.0%

95.7%

4.0%

4.3%

Black

24,930,677

30,379,161

23,691,763

28,994,746

1,170,685

1,384,415

 

 

 

95.0%

95.4%

4.7%

4.6%

Hispanic

20,467,541

32,170,919

12,835,653

19,003,663

7,571,895

13,167,256

 

 

 

62.7%

59.1%

37.0%

40.9%

Asian

6,870,137

11,647,649

2,411,827

3,769,745

4,352,711

7,877,904

 

 

 

35.1%

32.4%

63.4%

67.6%

Total

198,391,586

225,981,711

179,601,145

196,614,669

18,790,948

29,367,042

 

 

 

90.5%

87.0%

9.5%

13.0%

 These seem like exceptional places in the context of the national averages.  But they are not alone.  Indeed one might just as well argue that areas with concentrated immigration are the exception, because so much of the country is more like Cincinnati than like Los Angeles.  There are 262 metropolitan regions (out of 331 in the nation) where immigrants are still below 10% of the population.  In the areas, with a population of 115.7 million, only 5.7 million were born abroad ?actually less than 5%.   

The map of the continental United States in Figure 1 identifies the location of metropolitan regions where immigrants are plentiful (over 10% of the population) or scarce (under 5%).  The sections with few immigrants cover most of the Midwest and Mississippi Valley.  Sections with many immigrants are concentrated along the East Coast, the Southeast, the Southwest, and West Coast.

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