During the 1990s, minorities have played an increasing role in population growth throughout the United States. Fueled by international migration and by high natural increase as an outcome of their young age structures, Asians and Hispanics have joined with African Americans to increasingly determine population and household growth at almost every level of geography. Broad regions, whole states, central cities of the nation's metropolitan areas, and a growing number of suburbs now all depend on

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... inorities to sustain school enrollments, employment bases, downtown commerce, and housing markets. In addition to racial and ethnic turnover, households have been changing compositionally because of the general aging of the population and because of the increase in the number of unmarried adults. This paper surveys these and other demographic changes that have been taking place in the U.S. at the end of the 20th century, and examines some of their implications for household growth and housing consumption. A clearer understanding of both white and minority roles in owner and renter housing trends is developed through tracking changing cohort housing consumption patterns. Minority increases in owners and renters among younger cohorts, when set against non-Hispanic white losses in the older age groups among owners, and across middle age groups among renters, has led to large net gains for minorities. Distinct patterns of cohort turnover have taken place in different vintage housing stock. These trends are expected to continue over the next decade and beyond. Note on Data Points for Figures All figures are either individual Microsoft Excel charts, or multiple Excel charts imported into Word documents. They were produced using Microsoft ME Office Suite 2000. Data points for the Excel files are straightforward. Data points for the charts that are embedded in a Word document can be obtained by double clicking on the chart and going to "chart options" on the menu bar, then to "data labels", then to "print values". Alternatively, go to "source data" and click on the series field. Finally, when the chart is "opened" by the double click, you can just point to the bar or point with the cursor, and the value appears on the screen in a box.