The
Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service
at the University of Virginia has released their annual population estimates for Virginia. I had prepared an analysis for my show yesterday with Coy Barefoot on WINA but we didn’t have time to discuss the report.
As I have been following this data for the past several years, I thought the public might benefit from some trend information. Surprising to me, the City of Charlottesville grew at a faster rate in the prior year than the County of Albemarle, at least on a percentage basis (1.14% vs. 0.98%). [See chart #1]
Of course in raw numbers, the County still added almost twice as many people as Charlottesville (908 vs. 467). [See chart #2]
The Weldon Cooper data is from April 1, 2000 (the census) to July 1, 2007. That is a period of 7.25 years. During that period, Albemarle has grown by 9,415 people and Charlottesville has grown by 1,175 people. Charlottesville has had a negative net migration (-266 people). Thus Charlottesville’s growth has come more from natural increases (births exceeding deaths). Albemarle, on the other hand, has had growth predominantly from net migration of people moving into the County (6,472 people). This amounts to 69% of the increase in the County population since 2000, the remainder coming from natural increases.
Brian Wheeler
