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New population estimates came out earlier this week that showed how demographic trends are reshaping Virginia, sometimes in unexpected ways. I dealt with the headline items out of those numbers in Tuesday’s column: Fairfax County and Virginia Beach are losing population, and lots of it. Meanwhile, the pandemic has accelerated a migration of people to smaller communities, with Danville emerging as one of the biggest winners.
With that column, I showed off some maps, color-coded to show the population changes laid out by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia. Those are much like election maps: They show geography very well but don’t often give a sense of the scale of the population trends. With that in mind, today I’m going to show off some different maps, to help us all wrap our heads around what’s happening.
Let’s start with a standard way of looking at population changes:
1. The fastest-growing locality on a percentage basis: New Kent. The fastest-shrinking: Sussex
In the last decade, the fastest-growing places in the state, on a percentage basis, were in Northern Virginia and the fastest-shrinking were in the coal country of Southwest Virginia.
Both of those things have changed. The fastest-growing localities, on a percentage basis, are now generally outside Richmond. That's been true for several years now, but this year's population estimates bring another change: Three of the five localities shrinking at the fastest rate are now in eastern Southside. You can hover over each locality above to see the specific rates, but for those of you with less patience, here's the short version.
The fastest-growing localities, 2020-2024:
New Kent County 16.8%
Goochland County 11.2%
Louisa County 10.2%
Caroline County 9.3%
Suffolk 8.7%
The fastest-shrinking localities, 2020-24:
Sussex County -8.6%
Buchanan County -6.4%
Brunswick County -6.2%
Dickenson County -4.9%
Greensville County -4.7%
If you're wondering what has happened that the coal counties no longer dominate the shrinking list, and localities in Southside now do, hang on — we'll get to that.
2. The fastest-growing locality in actual numbers: Chesterfield. The fastest-shrinking: Virginia Beach
Percentages are a wonderful thing, useful for computing batting averages in baseball, but they don't help show the actual number of people involved. So let's look at how many people we're actually talking about adding or subtracting from each locality. Now our map looks different.
The fastest percentage growth may be out in some of those rural counties, but in terms of numbers, we're still talking about suburbs and exurbs. Chesterfield County has added more people than any other locality, but those Northern Virginia localities have still added a lot of people, even if their growth rates have slowed. We also see very clearly here that while rural counties in Southside and Southwest may be shrinking at the fastest rates, the place losing the most people is Virginia Beach. From a policy standpoint, I always like to call state government's attention to the population challenges in rural Virginia, but the biggest problem right now is in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia (although Northern Virginia's population challenges aren't apparent on this map).
These figures show population gains or losses overall; we'll soon get into the details of how and why.
The localities that have added the most people, 2020-2024:
Chesterfield County 30,277
Loudoun County 18,258
Prince William County 15,649
Henrico County 11,584
Stafford County 10,528
The localities that have lost the most people, 2020-2024:
Virginia Beach -6,505
Newport News -3,626
Portsmouth -2,675
Henry County -2,222
Tazewell County -1,875
Now let's get into the details of how these numbers are changing.
3. Most places have more deaths than births. Henry has the biggest imbalance of all. Northern Virginia is where most births are.
The map above shows localities with more births than deaths in green and more deaths than births in whatever that other color is. It's supposed to be red but came out more pink.
This is a direct consequence of an aging population. It's not that those places where deaths outnumber births are somehow unhealthy, they're simply old. By contrast, Northern Virginia is the youngest part of the state, and people there are having babies. This has a direct impact on public policy: This is why localities in Northern Virginia are building schools and localities in rural Virginia must often make the painful (and controversial) decision to close some schools. The large number of deaths in rural localities also puts all of them at a demographic disadvantage: It's simply not realistic for many of them to attract enough new residents to make up for the ones they're losing through inevitable mortality.
The localities where births most outnumber deaths, 2020-2024:
Fairfax County 29,008
Prince William County 15,238
Loudoun County 12,688
Arlington County 6,014
Virginia Beach 5,826
The localities where deaths most outnumber births, 2020-2024
Henry County -1,921
Roanoke County -1,575
Tazewell County -1,566
Washington County -1,499
Pittsylvania County -1,477
Just missing that list is Danville, at -1,423, meaning it had 1,423 more deaths than births. Hold that thought; we'll come back to it.
4. The big problem for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads is that more people are moving out than moving in
The only way that a rural county, with an aging population, can reverse its inevitable population decline is to persuade new people (especially younger people) to move in. The good news: That's happening. We saw some migration into rural areas before the pandemic, but the Zoom Era has accelerated those trends. Most parts of Virginia now see more people moving in than moving out. That's what the green above shows. The problem: It's usually not enough to make up for all those deaths. However, when you look at this map, you'll see another problem: The places hemorrhaging the most people are no longer rural areas, they're Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. The conventional wisdom is that this reflects high housing prices in Northern Virginia (which discourages new people from moving in) and insufficient economic growth in Hampton Roads. Whatever the reasons, these are the numbers.
The places that have seen the most net out-migration, 2020-2024:
Fairfax County -29,722
Virginia Beach -12,331
Alexandria -6,401
Newport News -6,246
Portsmouth -3,008
You'll notice that many of the localities on this list for out-migration are on the list above for leading the state in babymaking. There's a lot going on in these localities, demographically speaking.
The places that have seen the most net in-migration, 2020-2024:
Chesterfield County 25,840
Henrico County 9,924
Spotsylvania County 8,041
Frederick County 7,260
Stafford County 6,978
Next, let's look at the changes we've seen since the 2020 census.
5. We have 12 localities that were gaining population in 2020 but are now losing population
Here's a big trend: Localities whose population growth has reversed. Fairfax County and Virginia Beach are the big ones, but let's look at all of them.
Let's give Colonial Heights a pass. The population estimates show that its population is down by just one since 2020. That's not a trend; that could be a rounding error. The other localities break into two categories: The ones in the western part of the state (Roanoke, Roanoke County, Salem, Botetourt County and Rockbridge County, as we work our way north) all saw more people move in than move out. The only reason they lost population is because they had so many deaths. The population losses there don't seem to represent some kind of economic failure, they're just old.
However, the remaining localities all lost population because so many people moved out that even a “surplus” of births over deaths couldn't make up for all those outbound moving vans. Those localities need to figure out why they're losing so many people and what they can do to fix that.
6. We have 17 localities that were losing population in 2020 and are now gaining population
Here's another big trend: Losers who have become winners, population-wise.
The headliner there is Danville, a city given up for dead two decades ago by everyone except the people who lived there. However, notice that Norfolk is on this list, too. That's a welcome reversal of fortune, too. Remember how I said above that Danville almost made the Top 5 list for deaths over births? Danville made that up through a surge of net in-migration.
All these 17 localities except one had more deaths than births but managed to attract enough new residents to overcome that. The lone exception: Norfolk. That city saw more people move out than move in but gained population because Norfolk women gave birth to a lot of babies.
That brings us to our most hard-core cases:
7. Most of Southwest and Southside lost population in 2020 – and is still losing population today
Now we get to some bad news. The localities that are on a downhill slide in terms of population.
The reason is almost always the same: An aging population produced lots of deaths, which outnumbered people moving in. If you want a visual image, try this: Every moving van coming into the county had to wait for a funeral procession, maybe more than one.
However, we can do a little more analysis to get a better picture of some of these localities.
8. Out-migration is becoming less of a problem in rural Virginia
Now we come to some good news for many rural communities.
The map above shows the localities with the most hard-core demographic challenges. They're losing population two ways: Deaths outnumber births and more people are moving out than moving in. However, in all but one — that exception is Sussex County — deaths over births account for most of the population losses, not people moving out. To be sure, more people are still moving out than moving in, but those numbers appear to be slowing.
Buchanan County has usually been the state's fastest-shrinking county. From 2020 to 2022, out-migration accounted for 53.7% of the county's population decline. Over the past two years, that's changed, and now from 2020 to 2024, deaths account for 66% of Buchanan's population decline.
When we look at the numbers, we can get a better sense of how that out-migration is slowing in many places.
The biggest demographic challenges in the state are now in eastern Southside.
In Brunswick County, the population decline has accelerated, primarily through out-migration. From 2020 to 2022, out-migration was -141. From 2020 to 2024, it surged to -484 and now accounts for nearly half the county's population loss.
From 2020 to 2022, Dickenson County had a net out-migration of -167. When we extend that to 2020 to 2024, the number creeps up to just -177. It's still losing people through moves but at a far slower rate, which raises the prospect that those numbers may soon turn around.
In many places, we see net out-migration reversing over the past two years.
In Buchanan County, the out-migration from 2020 to 2022 was -495. Extend that from 2020 to 2024 and it comes down to -445.
We see more dramatic changes in Henry County. From 2020 to 2022, out-migration was -1,142. From 2020 to 2022, that had been cut to -301.
In Pittsylvania County, the figures went from -325 to -111.
Bristol and Floyd County have also seen their out-migration numbers fall. For all those counties, these trends offer some hope. Realistically, they'll keep losing population through deaths, but the number of residents voting in the marketplace to ditch them is going down at a pretty rapid clip. Over the past two years, all those counties appear to have seen net in-migration.
And then there's Sussex County, now the state's fastest-shrinking county, which is due mostly to people moving out. From 2020 to 2022, out-migration was -284. From 2020 to 2024, it's now up to -629. Out-migration now accounts for 67.5% of the population decline in Sussex County.
I'll continue to mine this data for more insights.
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