rural
What are the most popular colleges in Virginia?
The Most Popular College Football Teams on Facebook According to the New York Times’ analysis of the number of “likes” it receives on Facebook, Virginia Tech has easily the most popular football team in Virginia, but among undergraduate applicants, Virginia Tech…
Rural gentrification: Incomes are rising in some surprising places
The financial crisis and its aftereffects had a significant impact on American’s incomes. But the slow income growth that continued after the recession ended has also increased public awareness that income stagnation is a national problem that pre-dates the financial…
Rural Virginia: Death in paradise
Most of Dickenson County‘s residents live along the many river valleys that flow down into the Russell Fork which cuts through Virginia’s Cumberland Mountains to create the largest gorge east of the Mississippi. Yet despite its many scenic attractions and…
Farming in Virginia: Not in it for the money
Farming has a semi-mythological status unlike any other industry or occupation. In few places is this more true than Virginia, which was founded on farming and particularly tobacco farming. For much of Virginia’s history, its population was shaped by agriculture.…
Even more evidence for the new donut
A while back, I wrote a post on the transformation of US cities over the last two decades, using Charlotte, Houston, Atlanta, and Denver as examples. That investigation, using graphs to show changes in the city from the core to the…
Birth rates: Comparing Virginia’s counties with countries
One trend that was very noticeable in the recent population estimates for Virginia in 2014 was how much growth has slowed since 2010. While fewer people moving into the state was one cause for the slowdown, the other cause was…
The Goldilocks problem: Enrollment trends are not being kind to Virginia’s schools
This week, the Demographics Research Group published a new Census Brief covering recent trends in Virginia’s public school enrollment. Despite the weak economy, most of Virginia’s localities have continued to grow in population during the past five years. Throughout the…
High cotton: When Virginia’s counties hit their peak
If you grew up in one of Northern Virginia’s suburban counties, such as Prince William, or in any of Virginia’s metro areas, you likely grew up with the impression that growth is as certain as the seasons. For decades, many…
Retiring Boomers are going rural (but not too rural)
There is a lot of buzz amongst urbanists and demographers about the increasing gravitation of young adults towards urban areas. We’ve found evidence to support this narrative in some areas of Virginia, including indications that they may be staying even…
A Closer Look at MSA’s and Commuting
As Hamilton noted when posting the map of updated Virginia Metropolitan Statistical Areas, the MSA’s are calculated with commuting statistics. If more than 25% of workers in a locality commute to a nearby metropolitan area, that county is considered to…