We’ve compiled all our coverage of demographics on our demographics project page.
The Roanoke City Council is looking at whether and how to develop Evans Spring, the largest piece of undeveloped land in the city.
The Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors earlier this year voted to allow development of a 580-acre property.
Roanoke College is starting a football team.
Randolph College is adding two new sports, competitive cheerleading and men’s volleyball.
Radford University is offering free tuition for some in-state students.
Ferrum College is reducing tuition.
Lynchburg’s school board has voted to close two schools.
Seven separate actions in seven different places, but all have one root cause driving them: demographics. Specifically, declining birth rates that first will reduce the number of college-age students, then the number of workers, and, eventually, will cause the nation’s population to decline unless there’s either a dramatic reversal in birth rates or immigration policies.
A brief reality check on immigration
Despite whatever problems we might have controlling immigration along our southern border, the percentage of foreign-born people in the U.S. has a) not changed all that much over the past decade, and b) remains consistent with what it was from 1860 to 1920, and c) is actually a bit lower than the historic highs.
In 2022, the Migration Policy Institute reports that 13.9% of the nation’s population was foreign-born; the high points historically were 14.8% in 1890 and 14.7% in 1910. The only reason the percentage feels high is because most of us grew up in the post-World War II era when immigration was greatly reduced, and the percentage of foreign-born population fell to 4.7% in 1970.
Put another way, we all grew up in an abnormal era in American history; in terms of immigration, we are now back to what is, historically speaking, a more normal level. Our great-grandparents would not have found this unusual at all.
These demographic trends have been a long time coming. The nation’s post-war birth rate peaked in 1957 and has been declining ever since, with only a few modest interruptions. In 1973, the birth rate fell below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 births per woman and has stayed below that with just two exceptions — 2006 and 2007, when the birth rate ticked up to 2.1 but then fell back down. Immigration has helped make up some of that difference but not all.
That’s why Lynchburg is moving to close some schools; I discussed the demographics in the Hill City in a previous column. Meanwhile, all across the country, colleges are looking at what’s been called “the enrollment cliff” that looms out there in 2025. “Over the succeeding four years, the number of 18-year-olds will decrease by 15%,” Best Colleges reports. Other factors will also decrease the pool of available students — a growing awareness of how big the debt for college loans can be and that there are plenty of high-paying jobs in the trades. For all the reasons, colleges are scrambling to figure out ways to keep their enrollment up when the number of available students will go down.
I was recently scrolling through Facebook when I came upon some people I know arguing about Roanoke College’s new football team, and whether that’s a good idea. Those who thought it wasn’t invoked complaints that colleges are supposed to be about education, not athletics. I certainly won’t dispute that, but the point of Roanoke College adding a football team isn’t to become an athletic powerhouse but to help keep enrollment up. All those future football players are additional students on campus.
U.S. population will start to decline after 2080, Census Bureau projects
The U.S. Census Bureau projects that the nation’s population will peak in 2080 and then start to decline. In a recent report, the bureau laid out various scenarios, with much depending on how much immigration the country has. Among the highlights:
- If there’s no immigration, deaths will start to outnumber births in 2033. In a low immigration scenario, deaths would start to outnumber births in 2036. In a high immigration scenario, deaths would start to outnumber births in 2042.
- In any scenario, the size of the population 65 and older will be larger than the size of the population 18 and under. “In 2022, the median age for the total population was 38.9.” By 2100, this is projected to rise to, 46.5 in the high-immigration scenario, 49.2 in the low-immigration scenario, and 53.6 in the zero-immigration scenario.
Whether that works, and whether that’s a wise policy as compared to other things a school might do to keep enrollment up, I can’t say. But I can point out that what Roanoke College is doing isn’t unusual. In Lynchburg, Randolph College is also adding sports — not football, but competitive cheerleading and men’s volleyball. When Sue Ott Rowlands became president last year, she said her goal was, not surprisingly, to grow enrollment at a school where the number of students had fallen from 769 in 1992 to 553 when she arrived. Here’s one way she’s doing that: adding sports teams.
Why competitive cheerleading? The sport is officially called STUNT (all caps, please), and while it’s an offshoot of traditional cheerleading, it really seems more like gymnastics in a different form: The website for the sports’ governing body says that it “removes the crowd-leading element and focuses on the technical and athletic components of cheer, including partner stunts, pyramids, basket tosses, group jumps and tumbling.” Why add a STUNT team? Among the reasons offered on the website are these: “Large rosters” and “easy recruiting for colleges, from existing high school STUNT athletes, cheerleaders, gymnasts, and weightlifters.” And also this: “Low equipment, facility, and game operation costs.” I can easily see Randolph College running the numbers and concluding that adding a STUNT team is a great way to help boost enrollment. (By the way, the school’s enrollment this fall was up to 634, its largest student body in six years, according to the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.) The school also has a good talking point for its STUNT program that it included in the program’s announcement: “Randolph will be the only school east of the Appalachian Mountains and south of New Jersey to provide the varsity sport.” 
Demographics have also driven two controversial development projects: the one that Pittsylvania County approved this summer and the one that Roanoke is now contemplating for Evans Spring. For Pittsylvania the rationale goes like this: The county is losing population and would like to reverse that. It also hopes to land a major employer for the Southern Virginia Mega Site; if that happens, those workers will need to live somewhere. Either way, the county needs more housing. I wrote more in-depth about that in a previous column. (I also notice that none of the supervisors who voted for the rezoning lost their reelection bids, so maybe this project wasn’t as controversial as opponents thought it was.)
The forces that might lead Roanoke to develop Evans Spring, over opposition, are somewhat different but all tie back to demography. For those not familiar with Evans Spring, here are the highlights: It’s the largest undeveloped piece of property in the city — 151 acres of mostly forested land alongside Interstate 581 across from Valley View Mall on one side, and some historic Black neighborhoods on the other. Black residents of Roanoke have a long history of development projects not working out for them — many Black neighborhoods were leveled during urban renewal in the ’60s — so they understandably have some concerns. Other Roanokers have advocated against development on environmental grounds; you can read some of those in a commentary by the head of the Blue Ridge Land Conservancy.
I find that much of the debate over Evans Spring skips over two key points: This land is privately owned and is already zoned for some development. The city could do things to encourage — or discourage — that development but landowners could start building there right now if they were so inclined. If there are those who don’t want to see any development, then perhaps they should make the case for the city to buy the land and use it as permanent green space.
However, I’m ultimately here to discuss the demography that Roanoke is facing — so that people can either understand why the city might like to see that land developed, or so that they can fashion a response that addresses those demographic issues but offers a solution that doesn’t involve developing Evans Spring.
Roanoke is probably losing population.
The 2020 census showed the city gaining population and crossing the 100,000 threshold for the first time since 1980. However, the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service estimates that the city’s population has likely slipped to 99,364. The reasons for that decline are instructive. The center says it’s because deaths outnumber births, and a small net in-migration. The actual numbers: From 2000 to 2022, the city had 444 more deaths than births, a consequence of both an aging population and those declining birth rates. (Roanoke’s median age is 38.5, making it one of the oldest cities in Virginia.) Roanoke has seen slightly more people move in than out — a net gain of 67 over the past two years — but the bottom line is that Weldon Cooper says Roanoke has lost 377 people over two years. (Note that I’m talking here only about the City of Roanoke, not the larger Roanoke metro area. Virginia’s system of independent cities and counties makes this an important distinction. For discussion of the demographics of the larger Roanoke region, see the commentary today by John Hull of the Roanoke Regional Partnership).
Roanoke needs a bigger labor pool.
That loss of 377 people over two years may not sound like a lot but it’s worth looking deeper. If deaths — not births, not people moving in — are the primary demographic driver, then that means the city is getting older, and the workforce is getting smaller. That’s the exact opposite of what employers want to see; they want to be assured that they’ll have a deep labor pool not just now but going into the future. If they look at Roanoke’s demographics, they may not find as much assurance as they’d want. From 2010 to 2020, every age cohort in Roanoke between age 40 and age 60 saw a population decline. This matches anecdotal accounts we hear — that many people max out their career opportunities in Roanoke and if they want to move up, they need to move out.
Roanoke (and once again, I’m talking only about the city) has seen some growth in younger age cohorts — that’s a good thing — but it’s been small.
The age 25-29 cohort grew by 6% in Roanoke but 19% in Lynchburg and 37% in Richmond during that time.
The age 30-34 cohort grew by 12% in Roanoke but 24% in Lynchburg and 51% in Richmond.
The age 35-39 cohort grew by 4% in Roanoke but 9% in Lynchburg and 32% in Richmond.
If you were a company looking to relocate or expand, which of those numbers would impress you the most?
That’s why one of the main goals of every economic development entity I’ve ever spoken with, in the Roanoke Valley or beyond, has been on “talent attraction.” It’s particularly why there’s such great interest in persuading more graduates of local colleges to stay in the region. Generally speaking, most localities need a bigger labor pool to replace baby boomers as they retire. In Roanoke (and elsewhere), that need is heightened by more specific demographic trends.
Here’s where all these numbers run up against reality: If Roanoke is to attract new residents, it needs some place for them to live. Whether those new residents should be in Evans Spring or somewhere else is certainly debatable, but they’d need to go somewhere. Maybe part of the answer is to redevelop more old buildings into housing in and around downtown, although not everyone may want that kind of density. Maybe part of the answer is the redevelopment of the old American Viscose plant into Riverdale, although that’s a multi-decade project. Maybe part of the answer is something else somewhere else. It doesn’t have to be Evans Spring — although it’s easy to understand why some might think it could be or should be. Those who believe that Evans Spring should stay green space or only lightly developed have good environmental arguments. They’d help their cause if, rather than just saying “Protect Evans Spring,” they could also develop an alternative for where development should go. There may be multiple ways to address the city’s demographic challenges, but right now there’s just one that seems to be on the table.
