A much-ballyhooed report predicts that the borough will become mostly Hispanic by the year 2000, but the numbers don't tell the whole story.
Behind the projection, officials say, are a set of challenges for education and health care posed by diversity and immigration.
"The Bronx is such a mix," said Rep. Jose Serrano (D-South Bronx). "It's an old cliche, but people can learn about each other when given proximity. And if these different ethnic and socioeconomic groups can continue to understand each other, we'll have an opportunity to showcase our borough as a model in how to behave."
The report by the City Planning Department projects that the population of the borough will increase marginally to 1,245,000 by the year 2000, up from 1,204,000 in 1990.
Immigration and births to immigrants will account for most of the increase.
Julia Rivera, a spokeswoman for Lincoln Hospital in Mott Haven, said the expected population growth would increase the demand for pediatric services including immunizations and vaccines, and for women's services, especially pre- and postnatal care.
Since undocumented immigrants tend not to seek medical care until they get very sick, the hospital expects the demand for surgery, emergency-room care and neonatal intensive care to increase, Rivera said.
Immigrants also suffer disproportionately from infectious diseases including TB and AIDS, Rivera said.
As the number of children increases, the borough will need at least 12 new schools, Bob Nolan, budget director for Borough President Fernando Ferrer, told Newsday last May. Borough schools are already among the most overcrowded in the city. And many of the new students will require bilingual instruction.
The Bronx is home to people from countries including Sierre Leone, Jordan and Ethiopia. But most immigrants are and, city planners predict, will continue to be, young people from Latin America and the Caribbean.
Immigration from Asia is also on the rise. "Asians historically have not come to the Bronx," said Joe Salvo of the planning department. But that has been changing.
Hispanics are expected to make up 52 percent of the population of the borough in 2000, up from 43 percent in 1990, the report said. Salvo said births would account for two-thirds of the growth. Immigration -- especially from the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Ecuador -- will produce the rest.
Serrano said Hispanics' majority status in the borough by the millennium might not translate into greater political clout, since many of the new residents might not be eligible to vote. "As the borough grows Hispanic-wise, it may not grow citizen-wise," he said.
The white population of the borough is expected to drop steeply by the turn of the century, to 14 percent from 23 percent, as more whites move out or die than move in or give birth.
The number of blacks in the borough is also projected to decline, slightly -- to 30 percent from 31 percent. More blacks are leaving than are having children.
The Rev. Robert Jeffers, pastor of St. Augustine's Roman Catholic Church in Morrisania for 25 years until 1994, said many blacks had moved to the South. "Many of my parishioners left for North and South Carolina and a few of them went to Queens," he said.
The predictions are based on 1990 Census data, recent birth and death statistics, and moving trends from 1980 and 1990. If the comings and goings in the 90s don't follow the patterns established in the 80s, the year 2000 might not look the way planners expect it to look.
Immigration patterns could shift, and the number of white immigrants remains a "wild card," Salvo said.
The white population of the borough could even go up, Salvo said. From 1983 to 1991 a small but growing number of immigrants arrived from Ireland, Russia and Yugoslavia. The number of whites could rise if this influx continues, and if the small number of white residents stay, in what Salvo called the "die-hard factor."