A few years ago, the thought of obtaining authentic ethnic food other than in a grocery store in Coweta County was unthinkable. But the increase of ethnic restaurants confirms what a regional snapshot from the Atlanta Regional Commission confirmed last week: Coweta’s population is becoming far more diverse.

In fact, Coweta now boasts a non-white population of 24.3 percent. Adjacent Fayette County is now 26 percent minority which is the highest in nearly a half century. The 1960 Census shows the county then had a 29.6 percent minority population, while Coweta had a 36.2 percent minority population in 1960.

Coweta’s diversity mirrors the rest of the metro Atlanta area, where 75 percent of growth in the 20-county region has come from non-white population.

The biggest growth between 2000-2006 was in the African-American population, which added 371,000 in the region during the six-year period.

In Coweta, the African-American population jumped from 15,966 to 19,357.

Fayette’s black population now is higher than Coweta County, as a percentage of the total population.

Fayette’s black population is 17.9 percent, while Coweta’s stands at 17 percent.

Coweta’s white population increased 26.6 percent from 2000-2006, while the non-white population increased 38.3 percent.
Coweta County is also seeing the results of a huge population increase, especially a more affluent growth on the eastern side of the county.

Dillard’s picked Newnan for only its second store south of Interstate 20, and developer Tom Reese’s plans for a huge upscale shopping and residential area, McIntosh Village, are still on the drawing board.

In Senoia, where the population jumped 71.7 percent from 2000-2006, a new downtown is being created and $300,000 lofts and $750,000 brownstones are set to rise on the site of an old cotton gin.

Fayette County now ranks as the state’s 23rd most populated African-American county, while Coweta County has the 22nd largest African-American population.

login to post comments