The Next America: Population 2043

Today, Amer­ica is ex­per­i­en­cing one of the largest demo­graph­ic shifts in our coun­try’s his­tory. Di­versity is deep­en­ing across the coun­try, both in cit­ies where it is already well es­tab­lished and in com­munit­ies that have not pre­vi­ously felt those cur­rents.

The na­tion’s demo­graph­ic shifts are cre­at­ing im­port­ant chal­lenges and dy­nam­ic op­por­tun­it­ies for com­munit­ies across the coun­try as they grapple with the change that im­mig­rants and oth­er new ar­rivals bring to their neigh­bor­hoods. Des­pite Wash­ing­ton grid­lock and po­lar­iz­a­tion on im­mig­ra­tion is­sues, state and loc­al lead­ers are work­ing to­geth­er to get things done. In dozens of cit­ies, may­ors are both de­bat­ing these top­ics and cre­at­ing smart solu­tions to im­mig­ra­tion that could serve as a blue­print for the rest of the coun­try.

On Janu­ary 20, Na­tion­al Journ­al hos­ted a town hall in Wash­ing­ton, DC that con­vened the coun­try’s key may­ors and opin­ion lead­ers for a ro­bust dis­cus­sion about the na­tion’s di­ver­si­fic­a­tion and its im­plic­a­tions for com­munit­ies across the United States. We dis­cussed what factors have driv­en the coun­try’s deep­en­ing di­versity? How are cit­ies ad­apt­ing to the na­tion’s demo­graph­ic shifts? What ef­fect will Pres­id­ent Obama’s ex­ec­ut­ive or­der have on im­mig­ra­tion re­form? And what les­sons can Wash­ing­ton learn from loc­al of­fi­cials for­ging a new, di­verse Amer­ic­an iden­tity?