Some SWVA communities see younger population stabilize

In Southwest Virginia, the trend of outmigration among younger people appears to be slowing and even reversing in some counties.

The decline in the population aged 25 to 44 in Wise and Lee counties has slowed during the first half of the 2020s compared with the early 2010s, according to University of Virginia Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service research based on census data. Russell and Scott counties have shown slight growth in their 25-to-44-year-old workforces, as has Washington County, although Bristol, Virginia, has seen a decline.

This trend is largely the result of remote work and a tight labor market, says Hamilton Lombard, a Weldon Cooper Center demographer. Reece Miller with Holston Realty, 2024 president of the Bristol TN/VA Association of Realtors, agrees: “The reason we’re seeing it grow in some areas … is the COVID boom, the work from home revolution. People [are] able to bring a higher paying job, come to Southwest Virginia where there’s a low cost of living and still purchase a home or some land.”

From 2019 to 2022, there was a 30% increase — 309 people — in workers technically based in Washington, D.C., but working from Southwest Virginia, according to U.S. Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data.

Because that dataset excludes most federal workers, the actual number is likely higher, Lombard says.

Travis Staton, president and CEO of Abingdon nonprofit EO, says he’s seen remote workers come to the region “because they don’t want the city life. They can work remotely, they are professionals, and they’re actually helping drive local economies.”

This influx of young professionals is helping diversify the regional economy, bringing in high-paying jobs in fields like tech, consulting and finance, “and that’s going to stimulate the economy a lot of ways,” Lombard says.

The migration has also fueled competition in Bristol’s housing market — and a shortage of residential units is at least part of the reason Bristol’s 25-to-44-year-old population hasn’t grown, while adjacent counties’ populations have. For instance, the city had only 2.77 months of inventory in November 2024, while a balanced real estate market should have about six months’ worth.

Bristol lacks land for new construction, Miller notes, and “the city’s kind of filled out as much as it really can. There’s not a ton of dead space,” he says, at least under current zoning policy.