Anita Firebaugh
Contributing writer
Craig County has had a slow loss of population over the last 13 years, with numbers declining by 6.45% since the 2010 Census.
At that time, the county had 5,190 people. A recently released report from the Weldon Cooper Center for Population indicates that as of July 1, 2023, the county had a population estimate of 4,855. In the 2020 census, the county had a population of 4,892, for a loss of just under 1 percent of the population in the last three years.
The statistics echo a statewide trend of population loss, according to Weldon Cooper. However, it bucks a trend of migration from Virginia’s large metro areas into smaller metro areas and rural counties. Many other rural communities have seen slight gains in population since 2020.
“Craig County has not noticed a decline in population,” Board Supervisor Chair Jesse Spence said in an email on Feb. 8. “A 6.45% decline in population would only be a few hundred people in a County of this size. I would guess a lot more people than that decided not to fill out a Federal Census form.”
The numbers make Craig County the fourth smallest locality in the state, behind Highland, Bath, and Norton, in that order. Population numbers matter because it determines how federal and state funds are distributed to local governments for various programs and services, such as health care, education, and transportation.
Additionally, county population data is used to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and to draw congressional and state legislative districts, affecting the balance of power and influence in the government. County population data can help businesses and investors make decisions about where to locate, expand, or invest, based on the size, characteristics, and trends of the local market and workforce.
Individually, county population data can affect how much one pays for auto and homeowners insurance, as insurance companies use factors such as population density, traffic congestion, crime rates, and weather conditions to assess the risk of accidents and claims.
What’s more, the population of Craig County is expected to buck trends that show rural county increasing in population and instead continue its decline in population. A map on the Weldon Cooper site indicates that by 2050, Craig County will have a population of 4,264 people, nearly a 13 percent drop by mid-century from the 2023 population estimates.
Between 2022 and 2023, population in both Virginia and the U.S. grew by less than half a percentage point. For Virginia, this is the slowest growth the state has seen since the Civil War. Statewide, there were less than 13,000 more births than deaths in 2022, a big drop from 27,000 more births than deaths in 2019.
Some of Virginia’s recent migration trends—including movement from larger to smaller metro areas and from city cores to suburbs—echo longstanding demographic shifts that have been shaping the state’s population distribution for close to a century. For example, decades of migration into the Richmond Metro Area and weak growth in western Virginia means that at some point in 2024, the size of the population in the Richmond Metro Area will surpass Virginia’s total population living west of the Blue Ridge Mountains for the first time since before the American Revolution.
However, Virginia is experiencing a change in its demographic trends. In 2023, over three-quarters of Virginia’s rural counties outside metro areas had more people move into them than out, the highest share since 1975.
The persistence of remote work is shaping up to be the most impactful demographic trend since expansion of suburbs and exurbs after World War II, according to Weldon Cooper. If the impact of remote work even partially echoes the cataclysmic demographic shift that Virginia experienced during post-war suburbanization, Virginia’s population trends will continue to be reshaped by remote work well beyond this decade.
Increased migration is already impacting Virginia’s rural counties, particularly in an increase in real estate values. It remains to be seen as to whether or not Craig County will continue its downward population trend or obtain an increase in numbers, possibly as a result of better remote work opportunities or increased traffic from the proposed rails-to-trails project, should it come to fruition.
