In the new book Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America, William Frey highlights the "bottom up" demographic change that is occurring in the United States as today's youth are considerably more racially diverse than previous predominantly white generations. As a result of this demographic structure, the nation faces a "cultural generation gap." Yet these dynamics vary considerably from place to place. The following interactive feature illustrates this point by mapping the racial composition of different age groups at the county and metropolitan area scales.

The map defaults to showing the share of the total county population (all ages) that is white. Yet even among largely white counties a different pattern emerges when selecting younger age groups from the menu. Greater diversity can be seen among counties located in the nation’s Southeast, Southwest and coasts. By selecting a different race/ethnicity from the menu, maps highlighting different aspects of this diversity associated with blacks, Hispanics, Asians and persons with two or more races can be explored. Hovering over each county reveals a chart depicting the extent of the "cultural generation gap" in that county.

In addition, each of these indicators can be examined at the metropolitan level scale, by clicking on the "metropolitan area" button.

Share of County Residents Who Are White, 2013