Virginia Population Trends

A tightening labor supply will give workers more choice in who they work for, while the persistence of remote work will allow many workers more freedom in where they choose to live. That shift is creating new opportunities for rural regions like Southwest Virginia.

The explosion in remote work during the pandemic and its persistence since then is shaping up to be the most impactful demographic trend since expansion of suburbs and exurbs after World War II. While over the past century most population growth was concentrated within commuting distance of major employment centers, such as Washington DC...

Between 2010 and 2020, the population in Virginia increased by over 630,000 people, reaching 8.63 million by 2020. Examining this growth through the lens of age distribution provides interesting insights into the present population structure.

Before the Great Recession in the late 2000s, Louisa County was among the fastest growing counties in the nation. Lake Anna’s 200 miles of shoreline helped attract thousands of retirees to the county, while Louisa’s low cost of living and proximity to Charlottesville, Northern Virginia, and Richmond attracted many younger residents willing to make a […]

On July 13, 2022, the Demographics Research Group presented our analysis of the interrelationship between Virginia’s housing market and population trends to the General Assembly’s Housing Commission. After receiving a number of inquiries regarding the presentation, we are sharing a summary of the presentation with expanded commentary on some noteworthy trends. Throughout American history, the […]

Population projections provide an approximate idea of the expected future population size and are used in urban planning, resource allocation for emergency services, prioritizing public and private investments, and in many other ways. By using past observations with present trends and making certain plausible assumptions, we built the official 2020 projected population for each of […]

With the novel coronavirus causing a worldwide paradigm shift, I was genuinely tempted to jump into the data and analyze all possible permutations of what the potential impacts may be. Should I first plot the number of cases in Virginia with corresponding population densities on a map, or should I find causal connections between the […]

This morning the Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia released its 2019 population estimates for Virginia’s counties and cities. The estimates show Virginia’s population inched up to 8,535,519 in 2019, after passing 8.5 million in 2018. Though Virginia has added over half a million new residents since the last census in 2010, population […]

There is an axiom in the technology sector, known as Amara’s law, which states that the short term impact of a new technology will typically be overestimated while the long term impact is usually underestimated. This is particularly true when considering the impact the internet was expected to have on where people choose to live. […]

Having a crystal ball that could foresee the future would be ideal, but in reality we can only rely on our ability to project Virginia’s population based on past trends. Population projections provide a lens to look into the future to anticipate what the decades ahead may hold. While projections are inherently uncertain, as the […]