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is the population really decreasing?


movintoHR

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I can't imagine with the amount of high profile construction that the population is really decreasing.. just wondering if anyone could possibly give me some definite facts on this matter??

Depends upon whose numbers believe. The census bureau estimates that Norfolk has continued to lose population, but city officials dispute it. We won't know for sure for another 5 years or so, when the results of the 2010 census come out. I personally feel that the population has stabilized and that the census might find a small uptick in population come 2010, but nothing that is going to blow people out of the water either way.

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I think people are still moving out and around HR. But I believe that trend is changing; as it is around the country. Here in downtown Austin there are over 5 thousand new residents expected in the next 5 years. People are getting tired of traveling to work an hour or more each way. With gas prices not expected to drop much further, people are changing there lifestyles. I see nothing but positives in all this. I also believe the trend will well exceed expectations over the next 10 years.

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Norfolk's light rail line will bring more people into center city as well as residential projects already underway. The appeal of Freemason and Ghent beckons new home/condo/apartment dwellers. Whether that influx will counter ballance out-migration in traditional city areas remains to be seen. Ocean View and Willoughby areas must be gaining population. Aren't they within Norfolk's City Limits?

The US Census Bureau consistently underestimates urban populations.

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I think people are still moving out and around HR. But I believe that trend is changing; as it is around the country. Here in downtown Austin there are over 5 thousand new residents expected in the next 5 years. People are getting tired of traveling to work an hour or more each way. With gas prices not expected to drop much further, people are changing there lifestyles. I see nothing but positives in all this. I also believe the trend will well exceed expectations over the next 10 years.

I agree with you, people are really getting sick of traveling long distances to work, and now a days people are getting sick of the suburbs and moving closer or into the city, so I think the census bureau is wrong about the shrinking in population in Norfolk. But also people could be moving out of Norfolk into Virginia Beach, but I don't think it like a great migration, maybe just people with money are moving out of Norfolk.

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The U.S. Census does do a bad job especially in years between the census. A much better people counter for municipalities in Virginia is the Weldon Cooper Center (link). It has Norfolk gaining around 1000 people from the 2000 Census through July of last year for a growth rate of 0.5% which is essentially zero growth.

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There's no absolute certainty about this. The Census Bureau is the only "full" head count, so they provide the most complete data, yet they always come up short on totals for homeless populations, foreign born and ethnic minorities. Moving to a Census based on sampling would be much better for estimation of total populations.

I believe that Weldon Cooper uses birth rates, death rates, along with some evidential sources that help to measure migration. In California we used driver's license address changes, which were not always timely and were incomplete, but provided good indications of population movement by county. But it's pretty hard to estimate population in Hampton Roads using the typical natural increase models because of the large transient population.

Common sense works pretty well for this stuff too. I don't see an unusually large number of for sale or for rent signs, there's lots of new housing being built and the traffic is getting worse, not better. Losing Ford will be a minus, but growing port activity offsets some of that.

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I'm sure that it's a safe bet to say that Norfolk is probably at zero growth or losing population. Most of East Ocean View was higher density that is now much lower density. Much of Ocean View is being razed for bigger houses that more than likely house a fraction of the people they housed before. Broad Creek is another example of housing projects being replaced by much lower density housing.

Norfolk is probably not so sad to see many of the poorer and lower middle classes go anyway. The housing that is heavily promoted is generally aimed at young people who do not have children. Norfolk Schools is not a central focus when promoting the city of Norfolk despite the fact that is does very well for an urban district. It seems like they are all about pumping the housing up in Ghent/DT/OV but don't want to do anything (tax breaks, etc.) to get some other areas up and running (5 corners, Wards Corner, etc).

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I can't imagine with the amount of high profile construction that the population is really decreasing.. just wondering if anyone could possibly give me some definite facts on this matter??

Sorry I missed this one before :-)

There are a few things to take into account:

A, many of the large homes that are going up are (according to national numbers) occupied by less people. The affluent have less kids, but buy large homes. I know people who never plan to have kids that own 4 bedroom homes.

There is a high propability that much of the new construction is actually home to no one. People buy the places to hold and sell, not to live in. I don't know how prevaliant that investing is in our market, but an article in the paper just today mentioned someone who knows someone that bought 4 of the condos here downtown... to sell later, not to live in. There are stories from Cali and Florida where the schools were supposed to get a huge increase in students given all the homes sold, but no one registered and the school kids actually decreased. Once again, who knows how popular that is here. For sales have skyrocketed though. ~8700 or so as of money. Up 80-90 from last week.

Meanwhile, Suffolk and other areas are growing AFAIK. Then you have these really way ou tthere areas, like Gloscherheether (spelling), Isle of Weight, Elizabeth City, etc. People are moving there because they can't afford anything in HR, and commuting.

Also, I'm not sure if all of the Navy people are counted in the census. They aren't counted for any radio station statistics (which hurts certain demographic radio stations).

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