Rockville is home to the fastest-growing Asian population in the Washington area, recent census data show, a result experts largely attribute to the area’s top-flight school system and booming tech and bioscience industry. Roughly one-fifth of the city’s more than 61,000 residents are Asian, a growth of 79 percent over the last decade. The increase far outpaces neighboring areas Aspen Hill, North Bethesda, Gaithersburg and North Potomac. And other than North Potomac, where one-third of the roughly 24,000 residents are Asian, Rockville has the highest concentration of Asians.
“Most people who are working are affiliated with government agencies or tech and health industries,” said Larry Shinagawa, an Asian American studies professor at the University of Maryland. “So you have a lot of job opportunities and also Rockville is very pro-business-oriented.”
On average, Asian immigrants are well-educated and have a higher earning power than other first-generation immigrant groups, he said. Therefore, many are attracted to the high-skilled job opportunities in Montgomery County and can afford to live in areas such as Rockville, Bethesda and Potomac.
| Asian population growth in MontCo suburbs | |||
| Total | Percent | Growth from 2000 | |
| Rockville | 12,582 | 20.6% | +79.0% |
| Gaithersburg | 10,145 | 16.9% | +40.1% |
| North Potomac | 8,281 | 33.9% | +30.3% |
| North Bethesda | 6,421 | 14.7% | +39.0% |
| Bethesda | 5,681 | 9.3% | +29.8% |
| Aspen Hill | 5,297 | 10.9% | -8.3% |
| Olney | 3,670 | 10.8% | +45.3% |
| Montgomery County | 135,451 | 13.9% | +37.3% |
| Source: 2010 and 2000 census | |||
And in addition to the area’s industries, small-business opportunities along Rockville Pike combined with good public and private schools created the “perfect confluence” for a bustling Asian community that started building in the late 1980s.
“It has an identifiable nexus — the road, [Route] 355 ,is really clear as a [commercial] corridor,” Shinagawa said. “Also Rockville has a town center, and other cities don’t have that kind of center or a road you could quickly latch on to as a nexus. That’s why, in my opinion, Rockville grew so fast.”
While Hispanics and Latinos are the fastest-growing minority in Maryland, it’s a neck-and-neck race between the two immigrant groups in southwestern Montgomery County. In Gaithersburg, Hispanics and Asians both grew by about 40 percent over the last decade. In North Bethesda, Bethesda and Olney, Hispanic growth outpaced Asian growth. In Aspen Hill, the Asian population fell by 8 percent while the Hispanic population nearly doubled.
The dynamics in the county’s Washington suburbs are only outpaced in Maryland by Howard County, where Asian and Hispanic populations more than doubled during the last 10 years.
