By 2060, the chance that two randomly selected Michiganders will be of

By 2060, the chance that two randomly selected Michiganders will be of different racial or ethnic backgrounds will increase from 39% to 60%, according to a USA Today Diversity Index, which analyzed census data and demographic trends. In that time, the state’s Hispanic population will more than double, its African-American and Asian populations will increase, and six times as many Michiganders will identify themselves as multiracial, according to projections by USA Today.

Yet, even as the state becomes more diverse, its population will not grow as fast as populations in many other states, and Michigan’s political clout in the U.S. Congress is likely to diminish. Other states, particularly in the South and Southwest, will benefit from larger and faster-growing numbers of Hispanic Americans. After the 1960 census, Michigan had 19 congressional districts. If trends continue, Michigan could lose another congressional seat, dropping from 14 members in the U.S. House of Representatives to 13 after the 2020 census., demographers predict. By 2060, the state’s congressional districts could drop to 12, according to an analysis by the Institute for Southern Studies.

If annual birth and migration trends continue, Michigan is expected to drop to 10th largest by year’s end as North Carolina’s gains outpace Michigan’s. Over the next decade, it is likely that Virginia will push Michigan out of the top 10, according to Kurt Metzger, founder of Data Driven Detroit, a nonprofit data analysis firm, and the mayor of Pleasant Ridge.

From their porch steps, many Michiganders already are witnessing a world of change.

Michigan’s bracelet of diversity stretches from southwest Michigan, where Hispanic migration has helped grow communities, through the university towns of Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, to the changing suburbs of metropolitan Detroit.

Population trends by mid century will make Michigan’s I-94 corridor —- from the state’s southwest counties to suburban and urban Detroit —- a distinctive, multihued bracelet of racial and ethnic diversity around the wrist of the mitten-shaped Lower Peninsula.

via Detroit Free Press