
Belmont, City of Charlottesville
2. The “middle third” lives in smaller towns or suburbs surrounding major metros. The total population density across these tracts is about 1,700 people/square mile. That’s going to look something like this neighborhood west of Richmond, with single-family homes on larger lots. Notice the large gaps between developments, created by the winding road and cul-de-sac pattern of suburban development. Since roads and other infrastructure are built by developers on large tracts of cheap land, they are configured to maximize the value of each individual house, ensuring that none of them are located on a major thru street. This road configuration and the distances it creates means more vehicle miles traveled, leading to more road space per person. All destinations are also surrounded by ample off-street parking lots, which require twice as much area as the same number of parallel parking spaces:

Western Henrico County, just south of Short Pump
3. The “sparsest third” of the population occupies the least populated tracts. The upper limit for this group (735 persons/square mile) is still fairly suburban and suggests some kind of town or metro area nearby. Only about 1/4th of the population of the state lives in census tracts that can truly be termed “rural.” But the overall population density for this group is about 75 persons/square mile. That’s the sort of density you’ll find in a well-populated countryside, with scattered rural subdivisions and no major wilderness areas. It looks something like this part of Fauquier County:

Calverton, Fauquier County
Comparing these three groups
The differences between these groups are interesting. Density correlates with a few different demographic variables, though the reasons are rarely simple or one-dimensional. One of the strongest correlations is with race and ethnicity:



