Lynchburg has had some pretty ugly politics over the past four years: Council members from the same party split into warring factions, two council members censured by their colleagues, contentious council meetings with name-calling and other confrontations.
This year’s city council elections for three at-large seats are something of a free-for-all, with two rival Republican slates forced to run as independents after the state party intervened, plus a Democratic slate and one independent.
Politically, Lynchburg looks like a hot mess.
Demographically, it looks like a success story.
Today’s column is one in a series that I will be doing this fall in advance of municipal elections in some of our localities, where I will attempt to lay out the demographic changes — and challenges — that communities are seeing so that voters have an understanding of them before they cast their ballots. I previously looked at Roanoke and Salem, where housing issues have dominated part of the discussion; the reason those issues are percolating is because of population changes we’re seeing. In the past five years, Salem has drawn more new residents than Roanoke and Roanoke County combined, while Roanoke has been the last choice for new residents moving into the Roanoke Valley. There’s a demographic reason why candidates there are talking about housing.
Today, I’ll look at Lynchburg, where we see a striking disconnect between the city’s politics and its demography. That disconnect raises two conflicting questions: Have the city’s bitter political feuds had any impact on the economy? Would a more united approach — whichever side voters decide to come down on — deliver even more economic (and demographic) success?
Those are questions the data can’t answer but which Lynchburg voters might want to consider. For the data I’m about to present, I’m indebted to Charlottesville-based demographer Hamilton Lombard, who has shared a treasure trove of data from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics that I would have had difficulty finding on my own. We’ll start with the economic data then work our way to the demographic data.
In this decade, pay has risen faster in the Lynchburg metro than any other part of Virginia
In this decade, weekly pay in the Lynchburg metro has risen by 10.5%. The next closest metro is the Kingsport-Bristol metro that spans two states, at 9.6%. By contrast, the Roanoke Valley has seen wages grow by 6.2%, the New River Valley by 5.1% and Northern Virginia by 2.0%. The key word here, of course, may be “metro.” The Lynchburg MSA encompasses Lynchburg as well as the counties of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford and Campbell. Still, wherever that wage growth is coming from, something must be going right in this metro. Out of 928 metro areas in the country, the Lynchburg metro ranked 84th. No other Virginia metro made the top 100.
When we drill down deeper, to the city and county level, we see that Campbell County is driving a lot of this wage growth — wages there are up 24.3%. However, the city of Lynchburg is a driver, too. Wages there are up 8.9%. By contrast, they’re up just 2.6% in Bedford and 2.3% in Amherst.
Lynchburg’s wage growth is faster than Roanoke’s, if we want a comparison with a nearby central city. Roanoke’s rate is up 6.1%. Lynchburg’s wages are rising faster than in Charlottesville, too, where the increase is 7.9%. Lynchburg’s wages may still be lower than those two cities but the Hill City is closing the gap. That has to be counted as a success.
Lynchburg’s population is growing faster than most cities
In the column on Roanoke and Salem, I noted that Roanoke has struggled to maintain its population; it’s grown by just 75 people this decade — a rate of 0.1%. Lynchburg has added 2,408 people — a growth rate of 3.0%.
That’s a faster growth rate than most cities in Virginia, most of which have stayed about the same or shrunk a little. Only four other cities in Virginia have added more people than Lynchburg: Alexandria (3,926), Chesapeake (6,800), Richmond (14,868) and Suffolk (9,927). Only two of those are true central cities; Chesapeake and Suffolk are geographically large suburbs that just happen to be incorporated as cities.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Lynchburg was losing population. Now it’s growing, and in ways that make it stand out statewide. How much of this is due to the growth of Liberty University? That’s hard to quantify, although Liberty is certainly a factor. However, Harrisonburg and Charlottesville are also home to large universities, and Lynchburg has added more people than both of those university cities combined.
Lynchburg is unusual because it’s grown population two ways — through births and in-migration
In much of Virginia, deaths outnumber births. Lynchburg is unusual in that births outnumber deaths. That’s a function of a demographically young city. More on that to come. Since 2020, Lynchburg has seen 402 more births than deaths. In Roanoke, it’s the other way around: Deaths outnumber births by 913.
That’s not the main way Lynchburg is growing, though. Most of its new residents are coming via moving vans, not the maternity ward. During this decade, Lynchburg has seen 2,006 more people move in than move out. For comparison purposes, Roanoke has 988 more people move in than move out. Charlottesville lost 373 people through net out-migration. Virginia Beach lost 12,522. Lynchburg’s net in-migration is on the same scale as Falls Church (2,236).
Political figures as diverse as Vladimir Lenin and Ronald Reagan have observed that people “vote with their feet” — meaning they leave places they don’t like and move to ones they do. People are voting with their feet in favor of Lynchburg. So who are they?
It’s not just college students who are moving to Lynchburg
The Census Bureau’s age ranges don’t overlap perfectly with traditional college-age students — they break data down by ages 15-19, which covers a lot of high schoolers, and ages 20-24, which misses some college students. But we work with what we have.
The single fastest-growing age group in Lynchburg during the first half of the decade was, indeed, those 20-24. Their numbers increased by 1,702, although that was a slower growth rate than a decade before.
The second fastest-growing age group in Lynchburg isn’t in school at all — those ages 0-4 grew by 726. On a percentage basis, that’s the second fastest-growing age group, at a rate of 15.4%. The fastest growing is those 80-84; they’re growing at a rate of 17.6%.
There are other age groups where Lynchburg is gaining people, and also age groups where it’s losing. The point is that while college-age students account for a lot of Lynchburg’s growth, they don’t account for all of it — although they do account for most of it at 72.3%. Keep in mind that while college students come to Lynchburg to study, most of them also leave after graduation, so if there’s overall growth in this age group (and there is), that means either a lot of them are staying or others in that age group are moving to Lynchburg, too.
For comparison purposes: Harrisonburg, home to James Madison University, has seen its 20-24 population grow by just 3.9% (219 people). Montgomery County, home to Virginia Tech, has seen its 20-24 population shrink by 3.4% (629 people). Charlottesville, home to the University of Virginia, has seen its 20-24 population shrink by 13.7% (1,179 people).
Whatever is happening in Lynchburg to cause a big jump in this age group is unusual enough that it probably can’t be solely attributed to the city’s universities.
Lynchburg is projected to keep gaining population
Many cities are struggling to maintain their population; some are projected by the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service to lose population in the coming decades. (The most notable of those: Norfolk.) However, Lynchburg is expected to keep growing. The center estimates that by the next census Lynchburg will be home to 83,228 people, then reaching 86,116 by 2040 and 92,433 by 2050. While it may be unclear whether the city council has had anything to do with the city’s population changes to date, one question that voters might want to be keeping in mind is which candidates can best prepare their city for whatever growth is to come.
To see where the candidates for Lynchburg City Council stand, visit the Lynchburg page on our Voter Guide. Eight of the nine candidates have responded to our issues questionnaire. I’ll be looking at the demographics of other communities in the coming days. If you have a request, let me know.
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