From Lazy Glossophiliac’s blog on births in New York City, with some stats of relevance to Heather Mac Donald’s unpopular theory that gentrification and declining homicides are in a virtuous cycle in New York City. Population statistics in New York City tend to be somewhat sketchy, perhaps because of the rampant subletting and complicated rent control-related hijinks. So Lazy Glossophiliac looks at births in NYC by mother’s race, which is one measure of gentrification. (The ultimate stage of gentrification is white people have their teenage daughters walk to school at the local public high school.)

SUNDAY, MARCH 27, 2016

The Stats of Ice and Gunfire

… The share of Black births reached a new modern-era low with 19.4% in 2014. It peaked at 32% in 1986 and declined in every single year since then. In 2014 the share of Hispanic births was the lowest since 1983. The share of White births reached a new modern-era high of 33.1%.

Like last time I lumped these categories into the Ice People group (Whites and Asians) and the Sun People group (Blacks, Hispanics and Others). I put Others into the Sun group because according to the Summary of Vital Statistics their childhood mortality rate is closer to those of Blacks and Hispanics than to those of Whites and Asians.

In 2014, for the first time during the period covered by this graph and, I would guess, for the first time in more than half a century, NYC’s Ice People had more kids (50.12%) than NYC’s Sun People (49.88%). You can see the border between beige and yellow dip below 50% at the right edge of the graph. This is pretty historic.

… The murder rate in 2014 was the lowest since the change to the current reporting format in 1961. The rate fell from about 30 in 1990 to about 4 in 2014.

The peak of Sun People’s percentage of births appears to have been about 1991, perhaps not coincidentally.

[Comment at Unz.com]