Here’s a great map of the changing ethnic mosaic of New York City from the New York Times. Among the conclusions one could draw: (1) The gentrification of the city continues apace, in northern Manhattan and much of Brooklyn. (2) Native-born blacks are moving out of the city, to the suburbs or (I suspect in many cases) the South. (3) Immigrant groups that formerly dominated neighborhoods, like Dominicans in Upper Manhattan and other Hispanics in Williamsburg, are now being replaced by new immigrants or white gentrifiers.

An interesting exercise: draw the current congressional district lines on this map (the logic of their convoluted shapes will become apparent as you do) and then try to figure out how the New York legislature—heavily Democratic Assembly and narrowly Republican Senate—and Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo will draw the new district lines. New York state lost two House districts in the reapportionment following the 2010 Census, but Census estimates suggest that New York City actually grew more from 2000 to 2009 (4.8%) than the statewide average (3.0%); people have been leaving Upstate New York, especially its western edge, in droves, and its population increase in the same period was negligible (0.2%), while the four suburban counties around New York City, thanks to empty nest syndrome, grew a little more slowly than the city itself (4.2%). As a result, Upstate New York will have to lose a district, and the much larger combined New York City-four suburban counties will lose one as well. But the final Census figures for counties and smaller units, which have not been released yet, may differ in some significant way from the 2009 Census estimates.