A Second Migration

"I don't think anybody could give you a really high confidence number on the Latino population," Carlee said. "My best guess is that it is relatively stable right now, but it would not surprise me to see some declines in the future."

But activists and others who have worked to help hundreds of families displaced from the disappearing garden apartment complexes -- which in the past were the first homes for immigrants as they arrived in the country -- say the shift is too palpable to be ignored.

The county has preserved more than 6,000 affordable apartments for its residents and is negotiating a costly plan with a developer to save 300 more in the Buckingham neighborhood off Glebe Road. Yet it has lost half of its affordable apartments to rising rents and redevelopment since 2000, records show.

"They don't want to have to say they're becoming a luxury, high-end community, which is the reality," said Lois Athey, a housing activist who is part of the Save Buckingham coalition.

At Kate Waller Barrett Elementary School, for example, enrollment plunged from nearly 500 students in 2001 to a low of about 340, although enrollment is rebounding a bit because of transfers from other schools, Principal Theresa D. Bratt said.

Nearby, the after-school program at the Whitefield Commons Community Resource Center was canceled this fall after only four students showed up. Its cozy rooms, hung with hand-painted flags from Central American countries, are locked most days after school, its row of computers dark.

"It's been sad because long-term families have had to move because of redevelopment," Bratt said. "It's been kind of emotional for all of us."

The school system has sparked some concern from parents by launching a boundary task force to examine what do to about the fact that some schools in South Arlington have lost enrollment while others in the north end of the county are overcrowded.

Business owners are feeling a pinch, too.

At Castro's Bakery on Wilson Boulevard, co-owner Guadalupe Castro said that each weekend, she used to sell 250 of her fruitcakes, a Salvadoran treat of white cake layered with fresh fruit. Now she sells 20.

Nearby, at Atlacatl restaurant on Columbia Pike, business is down 40 percent from this time last year, said Augustina Mejia, the owner's daughter. The restaurant is sometimes deserted during the week, she said, but business swells on the weekends, she said, when former Arlingtonians who live farther out return for home cooking.

The most obvious benefit for those leaving the inner suburbs is that many can afford to become homeowners, Tejada said. In Arlington, the average price of a single-family home was more than $500,000 last year.