America the Diverse

Now more than ever, builders must cater to the cultural needs, practices and preferences of emerging consumer groups, and two new reports are shedding more light on the subject.

Racial minorities will shape two-thirds of all housing demand during the next 20 years, according to The State of the Nation’s Housing: 2001 by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

This trend, the report says, can be attributed to sweeping consumer demographic changes such as the doubling of minority buying power in the 1990s and Census Bureau projections that the growth rate of all minority groups, especially Asians and Hispanics, will outpace that of whites during the next five decades.

In another study, conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Asian-Americans are deemed one of the “most wired” groups in the country. The study found that three-fourths of Asian-Americans have used the Internet for general research, and 71% research product information on the Web. For more information, go to www.jchs.harvard.edu and www.pewinternet.org.