Roanoke's population expands over decade
Interactive map: Click on the counties and cities on the map to learn more about their population totals and racial makeup.
Map by Ryan Loew and Matt Chittum | The Roanoke Times
Thursday, February 3, 2011
The city's growth was fueled in large part by an influx of minorities, including nearly 4,000 Hispanic residents.
Updates from the Datasphere
Virginia's population
2010.census.gov
Reversing decades of decline, Roanoke saw its population grow modestly in the past 10 years to 97,032, census numbers show.
The 2.2 percent increase -- the first good census news for the city since 1980 -- was driven in large part by an influx of nearly 4,000 Hispanic residents.
That's about twice the city's net gain of 2,121 residents since the last government head count in 2000.
More blacks and Asians are also calling Roanoke home. However, the white population declined enough over the past decade to offset those gains, while making the urban center of Southwest Virginia even more culturally diverse.
Although city officials did not have time to scrutinize the data released Thursday afternoon, they liked what they saw at first glance.
"Bottom line, this is great news for us, and it reverses at least a two-decade decline for us in terms of population trends," said Brian Townsend, assistant city manager for community development.
Elsewhere in the region, most cities and counties posted gains that ranged from 0.2 percent in Salem to 18.8 percent in Franklin County.
The most striking losses were in Martinsville and Henry County, which bled 5,374 people -- about one out of every 13 residents -- as the region continued to reel from setbacks in the textile and furniture industries.
Yet perhaps the most revealing information to come from Thursday's substantial data dump was the dramatic racial and ethnic shifts Roanoke has undergone over the past decade.
A 280 percent surge in Hispanic population, coupled with 9 percent growth in black and 55 percent growth in Asian populations, more than made up for a 5 percent decline in whites.
Whites still make up a 64 percent majority of Roanoke's population, and the black population has increased slightly to 28 percent, with Asians at less than 2 percent. The census tallied 5,345 people of Hispanic origin, or 5.5 percent of the city's population. That's up from 1.5 percent a decade ago.
The largest concentration of new Hispanic residents is along the Williamson Road corridor.
In neighboring Roanoke County, the white population declined to 90 percent from 93 percent, and more than half of the 6,598 population growth -- an increase of 7.7 percent -- was fueled by racial and ethnic minorities.
Franklin County's gain of 18.8 percent was the region's highest. That's not counting a 25.7 percent increase in Alleghany County, which would have lost population had it not been for the 4,289 residents it picked up in 2001 when the former city of Clifton Forge became a town within the county.
"The fact that we're the fastest growing county in the Roanoke Valley doesn't surprise me," Franklin County Administrator Rick Huff said.
Huff said Franklin County's assets are many, including, "a great school system coupled with a much lower tax rate than the rest of the Roanoke Valley."
It would be a mistake to automatically assume most of the population increase has occurred around Smith Mountain Lake, Huff said. Other locales in the county have added residents, he said, including the Windy Gap and Hardy areas and locations west of Boones Mill.
Just a short drive south on U.S. 220, the picture was much bleaker.
"Not a surprise," Tim Hall, deputy county administrator for Henry County, said of a 6.5 percent drop in the county and a 10.4 percent decline in the city of Martinsville.
"When a community is manufacturing-based and the federal government decides it doesn't want domestic manufacturing anymore, this is what the numbers will do," he said. "We work every day on transitioning to an economy less reliant on traditional manufacturing, but it's a tough journey."
In the New River Valley, there were more gainers than losers.
Montgomery County grew by nearly 13 percent. That made it more populous than Roanoke County and the second-largest jurisdiction in the Roanoke and New River valleys, about 3,000 residents behind Roanoke.
Floyd County posted 10 percent growth. Giles County grew by nearly 4 percent; Radford by a similar margin. In contrast, Pulaski County lost about 250 people, or slightly less than 1 percent, of its population.
Municipal planners had been waiting anxiously on the numbers released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau, which based its count on forms mailed to households last year that asked 10 questions about the number of occupants, their ages and their race as of April 1.
The once-in-a-decade head count carries consequences for Southwest Virginians that go far beyond bragging rights over which locality is the biggest or fastest growing.
Also at stake is political representation -- state lawmakers will use the census results to redraw the lines of voting districts later this year -- and the influx of millions of dollars in federal and state funding.
"A lot has to do with population size, so when a locality grows it gets more funding," said Qian Cai, director of demographics and work force for the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia.
When the numbers are combined with more detailed surveys conducted by the Census Bureau, the impact will broaden: Businesses might look at population and income figures in considering a move to the area; charities will rely on poverty indicators to target those in need; city and county planners will use an array of data in deciding how to manage growth.
Although much of that growth in Roanoke came from the expanding Hispanic population, officials also pointed to more residents living downtown and the evolution of Carilion Clinic.
After hitting the 100,000 mark in the 1980 census, the city's numbers shrank with each decennial count -- until the one released Thursday. Officials hoped the turnaround was because of their efforts to redevelop old neighborhoods in a city that cannot expand its boundaries.
"It is a sense of turning the corner and reversing a negative trend," Townsend said.
"It's a modest reversal ... but for an urban center like Roanoke that is landlocked, I'll take a gain of 2 [percent] to 3 percent every decade as being a positive sign for the city."
As for the overall area, "I'm very excited," said Beth Doughty, executive director of the Roanoke Regional Partnership. "I think that, as a place to live, the region has never been more attractive than it is now."
Staff writers Duncan Adams, Brian Kelley and Jeff Sturgeon contributed to this report.
laurence.hammack@roanoke.com 981-3239
