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Nelson County is one of the coolest counties in Virginia, one of those places that seems to have the best of both worlds. You want rural? Nelson’s got rural, with great views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. You want urban? Charlottesville is a relatively easy trip up U.S. 29. It’s also got the Wintergreen resort, a unique asset in its own right.
No wonder then that before the pandemic, Nelson County had the highest rate of remote workers in Virginia. Parts of Northern Virginia have since stolen that title, but Nelson County has seen its rate of remote workers increase. Even beyond remote workers, Nelson has seen an influx of people in general moving in during the past three years. Since the last census, Nelson has seen 204 more people move in than move out.
That shouldn’t surprise any of this, but this might: In that same time, Lee County, in the state’s southwestern tip, has seen even more people move in. It’s posted a net in-migration of 304 people.
Lee is unusual by its unique geography, but not its influx of new residents. The latest census estimates show that multiple counties in Southwest Virginia have outperformed Nelson County over the past three years when it came to attracting newcomers. Carroll County has posted a net in-migration of 357 people, Wythe County 327, Scott County 280, Grayson County 270, Giles County 257 — all higher than Nelson County. Washington County’s net in-migration has been higher yet, which calls out for a different comparison. How about this: Washington County has seen more net in-migration than Fauquier County on the edge of Northern Virginia — 774 for Washington County, 449 for Fauquier County.
And all those Southwest Virginia counties I just named — plus some others — are experiencing something that not even the state’s most affluent localities are. All but a handful of localities in Southwest Virginia are now seeing more people move in than move out, while most localities in Northern Virginia — most notably Fairfax County, but also Arlington County, Prince William County and Alexandria — are losing so many people via out-migration that they’re now losing population, period.
These observations that I’ve just put into words come from the numbers in the new round of population estimates that recently came out from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia. These trends represent a stunning reversal of longstanding trends, and that paradigm shift has gotten attention at the highest levels of the state — Gov. Glenn Youngkin mentioned this recently when he addressed a reception in Richmond sponsored by the Bristol Chamber of Commerce. It’s time we all try to wrap our heads around what these new numbers mean, so that’s my column today: I’m going to dig into these numbers beyond the surface-level figures to try to give a more detailed picture of how Virginia is being reshaped.
Before we do that, a quick lesson in demography. There are four things, and only four things, that drive population changes: births, deaths, people moving in, people moving out. Those four things come in two categories — either births outnumber deaths or the other way around, and either more people move in than move out, or the other way around. There may be lots of things that can goose those numbers up or down — pandemics, taxes, economic changes, social changes, you name it — but those are the four basic population drivers. That’s what we’ll look at today — and at how different parts of Virginia have different trends going on.
Most parts of Virginia have more deaths than births
Overall, Virginia has more births than deaths — a “natural increase” of 47,274 since 2000 — but that’s because those births are concentrated in and around the state’s urban crescent. In the rest of the state, deaths outnumber births. You can see that geographic imbalance in the map above. These also tend to be our youngest localities, in terms of median age. I’m skipping ahead but the demographic problem that most rural localities have is that they’re older, and the demographic problem with older people is they’re not having children and then they tend to die. Yes, we’re also seeing lower birth rates, but most communities are so skewed toward the older side that not even a baby boom could make up for the death rates.
Just because a community is shown here with more births than deaths doesn’t mean it’s got a lot more births. Caroline County is on the “plus” or pink side here, but that’s a surplus of 17 more births than deaths since the last census. By contrast, Fairfax County had 22,642 more births than deaths in that time. Put another way, almost half of the state’s births-over-deaths number is due to Fairfax County. Now, I realize that Fairfax County is like Texas: Everything is bigger there. However, keep this big births-over-deaths number in mind when we talk about Fairfax County’s overall population trends. It’s losing so many people via out-migration that it wipes out even that big births-over-deaths number. That underscores how severe the out-migration problem is.
You’ll notice two curious exceptions to this urban crescent-dominated map: Lynchburg and Appomattox County. The numbers are small — a “surplus” of 48 in Lynchburg and 28 in Appomattox. Still, those communities are growing naturally, so to speak.
I’ll take a deeper look at the deaths-over-births figures in some communities in a future column but for now, this will suffice.
Most localities are seeing more people move in than move out
This is the big change, one that’s difficult to overstate. For a long time, many rural counties saw an exodus of people. Now they’re seeing people moving in. Some of these trends were developing before the pandemic, but the pandemic has accelerated what amounts to a Zoom-era migration. This is what we need to be paying attention to. An aging county can’t really do much about its deaths over births figure — that’s inevitable. What it can try to change is the number of people moving in and moving out. And that’s where we’re seeing some fascinating changes.
Parts of Southwest Virginia are becoming growth magnets
The green-and-red map I showed you flattens out the trends, just for the sake of simplicity. The map immediately above gives a better sense of the gradations of this net in-migration.
Not every part of Southwest Virginia is gaining people at the same rate: Smyth County has seen a net in-migration of just 48 since the last census. And some counties are still losing people via the moving van. But the fact that at least some localities in Southwest Virginia are now growth magnets is a significant change. In some counties, not all of which are in Southwest Virginia, it’s a very recent change: Accomack County, Alleghany County, Lee County, Northampton County, Page County, Smyth County and Surry County were all losing people via net out-migration until this past year; now they’ve switched into the net in-migration column. There’s always a chance that this is a temporary blip that will go away in future years, but the fact that Lee County was losing people to the moving van and now has higher net in-migration than even Nelson County makes me think something serious is happening there.
Because of those high deaths-over-births numbers, all these Southwest localities are losing population overall and will be for some time, but beneath the surface, there’s a lot of movement into those counties. The map above shows some sense of scale of these changes. If you can look past all the funerals, the future for some of these Southwest counties may be brighter than some had thought a few years ago.
Rural Virginia is often where the big population growth is right now.
Here are the 20 localities that over the past three years have seen the highest net in-migration rates. The Richmond-area suburbs aren’t surprising, but notice how many rural counties make the list. Also notice who doesn’t: Fairfax County.
Chesterfield County 19,796
Suffolk 5,729
Stafford County 5,528
Spotsylvania County 5,316
Frederick County 4,787
Henrico County 4,316
Hanover County 3,589
Albemarle County 3,393
James City County 3,182
Loudoun County 3,029
Louisa County 2,981
New Kent County 2,664
Isle of Wight County 2,447
Caroline County 2,159
Goochland County 2,104
Bedford County 2,100
Rockingham County 1,851
Culpeper County 1,832
Orange County 1,643
York County 1,505
Some localities, mostly in Southwest and Southside, are double losers
Now for the bad news: Some places are losing population in both columns. They have more deaths than births and more people moving out than moving in. The map above is complicated, but so are the facts, because we have localities whose population trends are moving in eight different directions. If you don’t want to get lost in the details, here’s how to read this. The counties in dark green are where we see double-pronged growth — they’re growing both through migration and births over deaths. It’s usually a lot more of the former than the latter, but it’s still growth in both population categories.
The counties in light green are gaining population exclusively through net in-migration — they have more deaths than births but so many new people moving in that their numbers are up overall anyway.
The ones in yellow are like Shrodinger’s cat — gaining and losing at the same time. They have more people moving in than moving out, but high death rates overshadow that so they’re losing population overall. Another way to think of that: All those counties in yellow have become magnets for newcomers, even if that’s not showing up in population counties — but rest assured it’s showing up in other ways on the ground in the form of new housing and new demands for services.
The localities we ought to focus on here are those in red. They’re losing population every way they can. Youngkin has picked out Petersburg as a place for special state attention, and I certainly can’t fault him for that, given all of that city’s challenges. However, Petersburg is gaining population. These communities in red aren’t. What can be done to help these hard-core cases?
Some may not be quite as hard-core as others. Roanoke makes the list but it’s in a very different place, economically and demographically, from, say, Buchanan County. Let’s take a closer look at those double losers.
In most of the ‘double losers,’ death is the main problem, not out-migration
When we look at how those “double losers” are losing, we see a clear trend: In most of them, the biggest population driver is the death rate. The only exceptions — where net out-migration is the biggest problem — are in three localities in Southside (Brunswick County, Greensville County and Emporia) and in Radford, which is a college town, a status that might explain those outflows.
Here’s where those aging populations explain things. Patrick County saw a population decline of 637 — but 590 of that was from deaths outnumbering births; only 47 more people moved out than moved in. That’s close enough to be “fixable,” but Patrick County can’t stop people from dying and, with an aging population, it can’t really increase the birth rate either. Some of these figures may not be quite as alarming as they first seem.
Likewise, Pittsylvania County saw a population decline of 1,330 — but 1,112 of that was from deaths outnumbering births; only 218 more people moved out than moved in.
Roanoke’s figures were also heavily weighted toward the deaths side. Its population is down 966, but 683 of that is because deaths outnumber births. The city’s net out-migration is 283.
Realistically, if these communities want to do something about deaths outnumbering births, they need to attract younger residents and hope that nature takes its course.
There’s even some good news in these figures for the locality that historically has seen the state’s steepest population declines: Buchanan County. In the past, the big driver there has been net out-migration — people leaving. Now that’s flipped and the biggest driver of its population decline is deaths over births. Since 2020, Buchanan County’s population is down 1,164 — but of that, 690 is due to more deaths than births, 474 from more people moving out than in.
That’s still a large out-migration figure compared to its neighbors. Wise County had net out-migration of -277, Tazewell County -155, Dickens County -151. However, these figures suggest that net out-migration from Buchanan County is slowing down.
Even in what look like bad numbers, there might be some good numbers for those localities.
Open house in Roanoke
Cardinal is kicking off a series of open houses around our coverage area. On Thursday, we’ll be in Roanoke at Twisted Track from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. If you’re in the area, come by to meet some of the Cardinal team.