Vast segments of the United States increasingly are becoming ethnically diverse, creating what William Frey, author of "Diversity Explosion: How Racial Demographics are Remaking America" terms a "cultural generation gap." But, note researchers at the Brookings Institution, that diversity is concentrated in distinct American regions, largely in areas bordering the nation's three coasts.

To better document such trends, the Brookings Institution has created an interactive map charting demographic changes by age throughout the nation.

Most striking is the increase in Hispanic population - immigrants and children of immigrants.

As of 2013 in the Houston-Woodlands-Sugar Land metro area, 38 percent of the total population was white, 17 percent black and 36 percent Hispanic. But in the 4 and under age group, Anglo population declined to 28 percent; Hispanic grew to 48 percent. Only in the 50-65 age group did Anglos assert plurality of 51 percent, roughly twice the Hispanic population. Black population varied little when broken down by age groups.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area, demographic makeup for all ages in 2013 was 49 percent white, 15 percent black and 28 percent Hispanic. In the 4 and under age group, Hispanics topped Anglos by 40 to 36 percent. In the San Antonio-New Braunfels metro area, Hispanics made up 55 percent of the total population; 64 percent of those in the 4 and under age group.

In the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area, 60 percent of those 4 and under were Hispanic; only 19 percent white. Whites retained a plurality only among those 50 and older.

Generally, areas in the upper Midwest were less diverse. In the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area whites retained a plurality in the total population - 48 percent - and in the 4 and under group, with 38 percent white, 32 percent Hispanic.

Source: Published originally on The Houston Chronicle as Regions along the nation's 'three coasts' grow increasingly Hispanic, new survey reveals, by Allan Turner, January 5, 2016.