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The recent wave of populism and anti-establishment voting behavior in the United States made me want to take a closer look at how the structure of the U.S. political representation system might be contributing to the development of these sentiments. In what ways has this system fallen short, for example, in responding effectively to U.S. […]

“How many unauthorized immigrants are there in Virginia?” This is a question we get asked quite often, but there is really no good data or any official statistic on it. Migration numbers are difficult to estimate and counting the number of unauthorized or undocumented migrants can be especially challenging given the limited availability of records. Neither censuses nor surveys conducted […]

While the population of Virginia as a whole is projected to continue growing steadily over the next two decades (albeit at a slowing pace), the growth patterns of the 95 counties and 38 independent cities that make up Virginia vary tremendously, ranging from high growth to continuing decline. What can the age distribution of a […]

“All models are wrong, but some are useful” – George BoxTrying to predict the future is a risky business because it is inherently uncertain, but we need to do so in order to plan.The Cooper Center recently released Virginia population projections for 2020-2040. The projections were developed by extrapolating historical population trends. As part of […]

Last month our office released Virginia’s population projections for 2020 until 2040. If you combed through the data tables, then you may have noticed one striking prediction—Whites will make up less than half of Virginia’s population by 2040. Recently, the Census Bureau made a similar projection for the nation as a whole. While these types […]

Our recently released population projections for Virginia show that the total population is projected to expand to nearly 8.75 million residents by 2020 and to over 10 million residents by 2040. A large number of these people will be 65 or older. Virginia’s elderly population is anticipated to nearly double in size between 2010 and […]

Latest population projections show that Virginia will continue to grow steadily over time, and be home to more than 10 million people by 2040. The statewide growth rate is starting to slow down from 13% over 2000-2010 to a little over 9% between 2010-2020, which is consistent with trends observed at the national level. Comparing […]

Forecasting weather accurately is rarely possible but the public counts on exactly that – an accurate prediction. And the combination doesn’t always work out well as illustrated in the 2005 film, The Weather Man, when Nicholas Cage, who plays a meteorologist, sometimes gets the weather forecast wrong and is pelted with half-consumed fast food by […]

Job polarization refers to a situation in the labor force where growth is concentrated among both low-and high-wage jobs, while the number of middle-wage jobs declines. Inspired by a blog post about job polarization in Oregon since the Great Recession, I found that the same trend holds true for Virginia. While the number of low-and […]

I recently needed to research the commuting flows of the Charlottesville workforce and resident population to learn about the daytime population, and I needed to have an idea of what was happening at the neighborhood level. The U.S. Census’ Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) made this level of analysis possible. LODES data include […]