What are the neighborhood‑level demographic breakdowns (race, language, income) within Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District?
Executive summary
Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District is a compact, heavily urban district centered on the city of Minneapolis that combines pronounced racial and linguistic diversity with stark neighborhood‑level income differences: the district’s population is younger and more immigrant‑rich than much of the state, and its median household income sits above many urban peers but masks large local disparities (DataUSA, Census Reporter, Wikipedia) [1] [2] [3]. The publicly available sources used for this report provide reliable district‑level snapshots but do not publish a single, authoritative neighborhood‑by‑neighborhood table in the material supplied here; precinct/tract breakdowns require consulting Census tract data or local mapping tools referenced below [4] [5].
1. Geography and population: a compact, urban core with suburban edges
The 5th District covers the entirety of Minneapolis plus parts of neighboring Anoka and Ramsey counties and is geographically small and urban-suburban in character, concentrating about 700–707 thousand people with a median age in the mid‑30s — a younger profile compared with the state as a whole (Wikipedia; DataUSA; Census Reporter) [3] [1] [2]. Official district maps from the Minnesota Secretary of State show the exact municipal boundaries used for elections and are the authoritative source for mapping neighborhood or precinct data if one needs to move from district to neighborhood-level figures [5].
2. Race and ethnicity: high diversity overall, with clear spatial concentrations
At the district level, the 5th is among Minnesota’s most racially diverse congressional districts, with substantial Black/African American, Asian, Hispanic/Latino and White populations; this diversity is reinforced by a foreign‑born share estimated at around 16 percent — the highest of any Minnesota district — with immigrant communities from Somalia, Ethiopia, Mexico, India, Laos, Ecuador and Liberia explicitly named in demographic descriptions (Wikipedia; Census Reporter) [3] [2]. Public sources aggregate those groups at the district level; they also indicate that diversity is not evenly distributed: historically, neighborhoods in north Minneapolis have concentrated Black and immigrant residents while many central and southwest neighborhoods skew whiter — a pattern reported in local coverage and visible in tract maps, though the precise neighborhood percentages are not contained in the supplied district summaries [6] [3].
3. Language: Somali, other African languages, Spanish and more in everyday use
District‑level summaries identify a high share of residents who speak a language other than English at home, with Somali and other East African languages prominent among the named countries of origin and community profiles, alongside Spanish and Southeast Asian languages; these language communities are largely centered where immigrant settlement and social networks are strongest within Minneapolis (Wikipedia; Census Reporter) [3] [2]. The data supplied here do not include a neighborhood‑by‑neighborhood language table; for granular language maps, the Census’s American Community Survey at the tract level (data.census.gov) is the recommended next step [4].
4. Income and poverty: solid median income overall, but neighborhood inequality is sharp
The districtwide median household income is reported in recent profiles at roughly $82,864, a level that positions CD‑5 above many older urban cores, yet district summaries and local reporting emphasize large intra‑district contrasts — pockets of concentrated poverty in parts of north Minneapolis versus affluent blocks and newer developments elsewhere (DataUSA; Census Reporter; MPR) [1] [2] [6]. The supplied sources give district medians and poverty rates but do not provide a complete, citation-ready matrix of neighborhood incomes; consulting Census tract tables or Statistical Atlas tract maps is necessary to convert the district median into neighborhood‑level heatmaps [7] [4].
5. Sources, limitations, and political context
This analysis relies on district profiles (Census Reporter, DataUSA), encyclopedia summaries (Wikipedia), local reporting (MPR) and mapping references (MN Secretary of State). Those sources reliably describe district‑level race, language and income patterns but do not include the full neighborhood‑level crosswalk requested; extracting that requires tract‑level ACS data via data.census.gov or the Statistical Atlas tract tools [2] [1] [3] [5] [7]. Readers should note political framing: local outlets and political actors frequently emphasize either diversity and immigrant vibrancy or socio‑economic distress depending on their agendas — a reminder to check raw tract data (census) against narrative claims [6] [5].