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The state’s youngest locality is surrounded by one of its oldest.
That’s what happens when you have not just a college town but a two-college town plunked down in rural Virginia, although that somewhat flip answer is not particularly satisfying if you’re an employer in either of those communities.
I was recently invited by a business in Rockbridge County to speak to its board about the region’s demographics because that particular company has been having difficulty finding workers. The research I did to prepare for that talk has led to today’s column because the issues it highlights apply far beyond Lexington and Rockbridge County — and Buena Vista, let’s not forget Buena Vista! (Need a speaker? I’m also available to speak to your civic group; just let me know.)
Let’s begin with a curiosity: The youngest locality (by which I mean either a city or a county under Virginia’s independent city system) in the state is Lexington, with a median age of just 21.9. That makes Lexington not just the youngest city in Virginia but one of the youngest in the country. East Lansing, Michigan, comes in at 21.4 and Eagle Mountain, Utah (a suburb of Provo), at 19.0.
The reason why is easy to explain: Lexington is small and college students get counted.
You’ll notice that all of the five youngest places in Virginia are communities with at least one college, and sometimes more:
Lexington 21.9
Radford 23.8
Harrisonburg 25
Williamsburg 26.4
Lynchburg 28.7
To further illustrate the point, check out this age pyramid (males on left, females on right) for Lexington, which doesn’t look much like a pyramid at all:
You’ll see that more than half the city’s population — 54.5% — is between the ages of 15 and 25.
Normally, a young median age would be a desirable thing, and I don’t mean to suggest that Lexington’s demographics are undesirable. However, a young median age normally implies a large labor pool, and that’s not necessarily the case here: Lexington may be, in the words of the Bob Dylan song, “forever young,” but most of those students aren’t sticking around after graduation, so the youthful median age doesn’t have much impact on the local workforce.
Of more significance in the region is Rockbridge County, which, for starters, is about three times bigger (Lexington counted 7,320 in the last census, Rockbridge 22,650) and substantially older.
That Rockbridge County is on the old side shouldn’t be a surprise. Almost all rural areas in Virginia skew older; the only exceptions are the ones that are seeing a lot of population growth, and Rockbridge isn’t. Rockbridge County is losing population (we’ll get to those numbers shortly). What is surprising to me is just how old Rockbridge County is. It’s got a median age of 50.2. That’s nowhere close to be the oldest median age in the state — that distinction belongs to Highland County, at 60.0 — but it is among the oldest, as this chart shows:
What that color scheme doesn't show is that Rockbridge is now older than some of the places we often think of as being old, such as the coal counties of Southwest Virginia. Here's a fun fact (or maybe not so fun, depending on your point of view): Only one county west of Rockbridge County has an older median age, and that's tiny Craig County at 50.3. If we look across the whole southern tier of Virginia — let's define that today as being south of the James River — we find only two localities older than Rockbridge: the aforementioned Craig and Surry County, which also comes in at 50.3.
Rockbridge County wasn't always this way. In 1980, Rockbridge County had a median age of 32.6. So how did Rockbridge County get so old? (Some of us are wondering this about ourselves!) The answers apply to a lot of places, not just Rockbridge County.
Part of the answer is the aging of the baby boom generation. The nation as a whole was younger in 1980 — a median age of 30 then compared to a median age of 38.3 now. However, different communities have aged at different rates. In 1980, the difference between the youngest and oldest communities in Virginia was about 19 years — from 22.4 for college-town Williamsburg to 41.7 for Lancaster County, a popular retirement spot by the Chesapeake Bay. Today the difference is almost 39 years — from that 21.3 in Lexington (which has gotten younger!) to 60.0 in Highland County.
In general, rural areas in Virginia have gotten a lot older over the years, a direct consequence of so much out-migration among young adults and, in some cases, an influx of retirees. The only thing unusual about Rockbridge County is a matter of degree. In the case of Rockbridge, it has aged at a faster rate than all but a few other places in Virginia. Since 1980, only two localities have seen their median ages drop: Lexington (by 1.9 years) and Lynchburg (by 2.2 years). Lynchburg's big drop coincides with the explosive growth of Liberty University. Meanwhile, Rockbridge is among those localities that has aged the fastest:
It hasn't aged as fast as Highland County (up 24.5 years), which has aged more than any other locality in Virginia, but you'll see its aging rate is consistent with a lot of other places in rural Virginia, just a little more so than most — up 16.5 years.
Rockbridge is different from many of those other rural localities in one important way, though. While some of these other localities have lost population from 1980 to now, Rockbridge has gained population. That suggests that much of Rockbridge's population growth has come from older residents — perhaps retirees — moving in. We don't have precise numbers on that, but given the underlying data, it seems a pretty good supposition.
For instance:
Rockbridge's population growth of late has come entirely through in-migration. Since the last census, deaths have outnumbered births in Rockbridge by 409. That's typical of much of Virginia. This map gives you a sense of how commonplace that is:
Since the last census, Rockbridge has seen 221 more people move in than move out. Overall, Rockbridge is losing population but, beneath the surface, there's a lot of movement — hearses going out, moving vans coming in. Again, that's typical of much of Virginia, which, since the pandemic, has seen an influx of new residents.
Or, for a more detailed view:
One thing that strongly suggests the people moving into Rockbridge County are older is their income levels. The Internal Revenue Service publishes annual county-by-county reports on migration around the country based on where people file their tax returns. These figures run several years behind but they are good directional tools. For Rockbridge County, we see an unusually large income disparity between the people moving out and the people moving in. For 2020, the most recent year the IRS has available, people moving out of Rockbridge County had an average adjusted annual income of $55,208, while those moving in had an average adjusted annual income of $75,323. You'll notice that these numbers are pre-pandemic, so it will be fascinating to see what the post-pandemic numbers turn out to be.
Here's how wide that in-vs.-out income gap is: In Botetourt County, to the south, those moving out made $69,166 and those moving in made $71,923 — a gap of $2,757 versus a gap of $20,115 in Rockbridge. In some places, the figures are the other way around, with the people moving out making more money than those moving in. That's the case, for instance, in Roanoke.
These figures are great if you're selling real estate — who wouldn't want to have a customer with more disposable income? However, the age figures above are not so great if you're a company looking for a workforce.
Rockbridge is among those localities where the under 25 population is dropping so I'll repurpose this map that shows where the under 25 population is increasing so you can see who's left out:
Rockbridge does see some growth in its 25-45 population but it's on the low side among those localities. Over the past three years, the county's growth in that age cohort was just 70. By contrast, Botetourt to the south saw that cohort grow by 542; Augusta to the north saw its grow by 881. The Rockbridge growth in that age group is more akin to Alleghany County to the west, where the 25-45 population went up by just 56. Botetourt is within commuting distance of Roanoke; Augusta surrounds Staunton and Waynesboro. Rockbridge may simply lack a metro area big enough to spur much population growth — which might also make it an attractive retirement spot, further tilting its demographics toward the gray end of the scale.
Rockbridge County has a much more conventional age pyramid; you'll see the biggest age cohort is 55-59, with 50-54 and 60-64 nearly tied for second place. All the Rockbridge age cohorts from age 60 to 79 are bigger than their counterparts on the younger end of the age spectrum. This suggests the worker shortage in Rockbridge is going to get worse, not better, unless there's either an unexpected baby boom or a lot more younger people start moving in.
So far I've left out Buena Vista, the other city surrounded by Rockbridge County, but let's rectify that now. Buena Vista (6,641 in the last census) is smaller than Lexington and has a more blue-collar history than Lexington. However, Buena Vista has a college, too — Southern Virginia University — and we see that reflected in its demographics. Like other college towns, it's aged relatively slowly — and since 2020, its median age has dropped. With a median age of 35, Buena Vista is much older than Lexington, but it's still much younger than other localities along the Interstate 81 corridor. Buena Vista is losing population (down 118 since the last census) but virtually all of that drop is because deaths outnumber births (112). In the two youngest age cohorts — under 25 and 25-45 — Buena Vista has seen its population increase. The numbers are small because Buena Vista is small, but the direction is upward, nonetheless.
Not that long ago, Buena Vista seemed one of those small Southern cities that was being given up for dead, as its factories closed. Buena Vista today is definitely not dead. It's just not big enough to counter the aging demographics in Rockbridge.
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