U.S. Census data released in March indicate a slight decline in Somerville's total population, while showing significant increases in its Hispanic and Asian populations.
Though Somerville's total population grew during the 1990s, it declined in the past decade by 2.23 percent to 75,754 as of this year. The Asian and Hispanic populations grew by 32.4 percent and 18.1 percent, respectively, while the white population declined by 6.1 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Census data indicate that the African−American population remained roughly constant, with a slight growth of 2.5 percent.
Somerville Alderman Dennis Sullivan said the figures on changing ethnic demographics would inform the city's plans for a wide variety of services.
"It's something we can use when we determine curriculum in the schools to reflect everyone's culture and diversity," he told the Daily, adding that such changes could include bringing in more interpreters or bilingual police officers.
Levy said the increases in minority populations were consistent with Somerville's history as a diverse community.
"Somerville's always been a home to immigrants, so it's not surprising that the immigrant population continues to seek Somerville as a home," Meredith Levy, director of community organizing at the Somerville COmmunity Corporation, said.
The slight decrease in overall population may be a result of working families leaving Somerville due to a lack of affordable housing, according to Levy.
"A lot of families have moved out as prices become less affordable," Levy said, "and then you have young people without kids moving in."
The population dip, Assistant Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy Planning Justin Hollander said, might also have resulted from Somerville's increasing appeal to wealthier residents, who tend to live in larger houses with fewer people.
"As an area becomes more desirable, more expensive, oftentimes multifamily housing is converted into smaller units," Hollander said. "So that means that the average household size, of the average people per housing unit, has declined."
If that were the case, Hollander said, the number of housing units would not decrease as the overall population shrunk. Census data confirmed that the number of housing units actually increased by 3.7 percent as the total ppulation decreased.
The city recently voted to increase inclusionary housing, the percentage of units in any new housing development that must be affordable, according to Sullivan, who serves on the Board of Aldermen's Housing and Community Development Committee.
Somerville's capability to make affordable housing available has diminished as the economic slowdown has strained the city's budget, Sullivan added.
"We'd love to do more, but where are you going to take it from?" Sullivan said. "I think we're in a downward cycle for the next several years of very lean times."
Yet while the increase in housing units has made the city accessible to a greater number of economic classes, Sullivan warned that such efforts could discourage developers from coming to Somerville.
"It's a balancing act — if you raise it too much, you might stunt development," he said. "You can say ‘let's double housing,' but then it might not be attractive for that developer."
Levy said efforts to develop the city, such as the extension of the Red Line to Davis Square in the 1980s and the plan to expand the Green Line into Somerville by 2015, could increase the desirability of living there, thus increasing the property values of housing units and driving working families out.
"That's been a big issue here in Somerville because we're about to build the Green Line with six new stops, so we're keeping an eye on how is that going to impact who lives here five or ten years from now," Levy said.
While he acknowledged that urban development including the introduction of rapid transit could increase living costs, Sullivan said such measures also increased quality of life for Somerville residents.
"If we weren't making Somerville a great place, what would be the flip side? Davis Square wouldn't be the place that it is now," Sullivan said. "Development done right, and with the proper zoning and safeguards, enriches the city."
While Somerville's population trends might conflict with those of the greater Boston area — which increased by almost 5 percent over the past decade — Hollander said they did not conflict much with overall urban trends.
"The city of Boston grew over the last ten years, and the Boston metro area grew. There were probably three other cities of comparable size in Massachusetts that lost population," Hollander said.
"I don't think it's too much of an outlier, but certainly it does go against the trend," he said.
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Correction: This article has been updated to clarify that
2011 census data confirmed, and did not contradict, Justin Hollander's argument about the relationship between population and housing availability. In addition, the original article said incorrectly that Dennis Sullivan attributed an increase in the number of housing units in the city to a recent Board of Aldermen vote. These mistakes were made during the editing process and are not the fault of the writer.
