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Today we tell a tale of two cities. Charles Dickens told his through London and Paris. I shall tell this one through Salem and Roanoke, although the issues involved here are universal so you don’t need to live in either of those places to find some relevance to the issues they’re dealing with.
The Salem City Council faces an upcoming decision: whether to allow mixed-use development of part of the HopeTree Family Services property, often known as the Virginia Baptist Home. It would be the largest residential development in the city’s history.
This is broadly similar to a decision that the Roanoke City Council recently made — in that case, on whether to allow development of the Evans Spring property, the largest undeveloped piece of land in the city.
It’s also broadly similar to a decision that Pittsylvania County reckoned with last year — whether to allow a 1,900-unit residential development in the Axton part of the county — so maybe this is really a tale of two cities and one county.
Roanoke and Pittsylvania County ultimately voted yes. We’ll find out sometime this spring how Salem votes.
I have no opinion on what Salem should do, but I do have a lot of facts — demographic facts — that might help inform people in Salem one way or another.
The arguments in the HopeTree situation are familiar ones: The development would eat up 37 acres of green space. Neighbors don’t want their views disrupted, don’t want the traffic, don’t want a change to the character of the neighborhood. We heard variations of those arguments in both Roanoke and Pittsylvania County.
While all of these are, on the surface, development decisions, they are also, beneath the surface, demographic ones. That’s what I will deal with here today.
Let’s begin here: Salem is losing population.
Salem has gained population (granted, sometimes not much) in the past three U.S. Census Bureau headcounts. Now, according to the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, Salem’s population is down 1.4% since 2020.
For more context, since the Civil War, Salem has only lost population in one census count. In 1990, Salem’s population came in 202 people fewer than it had in 1980. Now, though, Salem’s population is down 361 in just three years.
This isn’t fatal — over a 10-year span between official headcounts, population figures can bob up and down, so maybe this downward trend will right itself. Still, given Salem’s history of consistent, if sometimes slow, population growth, this does seem something worth paying attention to, much as if your blood pressure suddenly changed for the worse.
More context: This -1.4% growth rate from 2020 to 2023 is the largest decline, in percentage terms, of any locality in the Roanoke Valley.
Why would Salem be losing population? It sure seems a successful community — a vibrant downtown, a stellar reputation for its schools and city services. It would seem to be the type of place that people would want to move to, right?
And they are.
Over the past three years, more people have moved into Salem than have moved out. The city has seen a net gain of 246 people. By contrast, Roanoke has experienced net out-migration, with 283 more people moving out than moving in.
So if more people are moving into Salem than moving out of Salem, why is the city’s population declining?
Because so many people in Salem are dying, that’s why.
Four drivers in two categories determine population: people moving in versus people moving out, and deaths versus births.
Salem has more people moving in than moving out, but also has more people dying than being born — a lot more.
From 2020 to 2023, Salem had 607 more people leave the world than enter the world, and that had the effect of wiping out Salem’s population gain from net in-migration.
This is not unusual. Most localities in Virginia have seen deaths outnumber births. This is a combination of an aging society that is dying off, and declining birth rates that have been below what demographics clinically call “the replacement rate.” Many Virginia localities that are experiencing net in-migration are still seeing their populations decline because there are so many more deaths than births.
What makes Salem unusual is that its deaths-over-births figure is on the large side. Here's how large: Roanoke is about four times bigger than Salem, but Salem and Roanoke have almost the same number of deaths over births (Roanoke's is 683, Salem's is 607).
Why is Salem's deaths-over-births figure so large for a community its size? Because its population is skewed older.
Here's what the U.S. population looks like.
You'll see that the generations between age 15 and 34 are the biggest, although not that much bigger than others. We see another big one from 55 to 59, but after age 60, they start getting smaller. Then under age 10, they really shrink, a direct result of declining birth rates.
In Salem, though, we see something different.
Salem has unusually large numbers between ages 15 and 24, although those numbers may be skewed by the presence of Roanoke College students. What's more significant is that the generations from age 25 to 59 are roughly equal, but then the age cohorts get bigger instead of smaller. The age 65-69 cohort is actually bigger than any five-year age cohort between 25 and 59. Also of note: The two age cohorts under age 10 are distinctly smaller than any of the other older age cohorts until you get to age 70.
Most localities on the western side of the state skew older, but here's how out of line Salem is with its neighbors. (You can see population pyramids for some of those Southwest counties in a previous column.)
In Roanoke, the single biggest age cohort is ages 25-29. The generations vary; but once you get to age 60, the cohorts shrink, while Salem's increase. The age cohorts for 10 and under are smaller than some of the older age cohorts, but not that much smaller.
In Roanoke County, the single biggest age cohort is ages 55-59, and they start to decrease after age 60. The age cohort for 5 to 9 is in line with some of the older age groups, but the one for under age 5 is smaller than anything under age 75.
Salem has more in common with Botetourt County, which is even older. In Botetourt, the biggest age cohort is 60-64, and notice how much smaller the under-10 cohorts are — the same as Salem. That's why Botetourt County is encouraging so much apartment development: in hopes of attracting a younger population that will then let nature take its course and have children.
Here's where all this connects to Salem's development challenges. Demographically speaking, Salem needs more children. The way to get more children is to get more young adults. That means Salem needs a place to put them, which means it needs more housing. (It might also need more patio homes for those older residents who wish to downsize.)
This does not mean that housing has to be at HopeTree Village, but it does have to be somewhere. This is similar to the challenge Roanoke faced with Evans Spring. The Star City also needs more housing — it doesn't have to be at Evans Spring, but it still has to be somewhere. So where? In Roanoke's case, the old American Viscose plant is being redeveloped into Riverdale but that's a long-term project. In Salem, the site of the old Valleydale meatpacking plant is already being converted into housing. Are there other old industrial properties in Salem that can be rehabbed into housing? If so, which developers will do that?
The HopeTree question before the council is actually narrower than many people realize: HopeTree already has the right to develop its property — perhaps 150 houses or so. The specific question isn't whether to allow development of the property — because it will get developed regardless — but whether to allow a specific type of development, in the form of a planned unit development that might have some commercial elements in what had previously been a purely residential neighborhood. However, these larger questions are indirectly before the council every time it meets.
Perhaps the threshold question is this: Is Salem OK with slight population decline? If so, then there's no need to do anything.
Given its age structure, Salem is never going to see a population boom — since 1980, its population growth has never been higher than 4.2%; since 2000, it's never been higher than 2.2%.
However, if Salem just wants to keep its population steady, then the city needs to figure out how to counter its big deaths-over-births deficit, which, given its population pyramid, is only going to get bigger.
How does Salem propose to do that? Regardless of how the city council votes on HopeTree, that's the question the city needs to keep in mind.