Two Southwest Virginia Towns Growing As Others Shrink

GLADE SPRING, Va. – Whether it’s a revitalized downtown or outdoor recreation, two small Southwest Virginia towns have bucked a trend that is plaguing the Mountain Empire – a slow but steady loss of population.

Glade Spring and Damascus added 88 and 145 new residents between 2000 and 2008, according to population estimates released this week from the U.S. Census Bureau.

That growth represents a 9 percent jump for Damascus and a 10.6 percent increase for Glade Spring, but comes at a time when almost every other community in the region has flat-lined or lost population.

The numbers

Census Bureau spokesman Robert Bernstein said his agency uses birth and death records, tax records and building permits to estimate the populations of every city, county and town in the United States. This year’s numbers do not paint a rosy picture for the Mountain Empire.

Only two of the region’s 10 counties – Washington and Wythe in Virginia – saw populations increase by more than 1 percent since the 2000 Census. The rest of the region’s communities lost residents, or stayed the same, such as Bristol, Va., and Sullivan County, Tenn., which saw their populations increase by six-tenths of a percent during those eight years.

The same pattern rings true for the region’s smaller communities.

All told, 24 of the region’s 31 communities saw population drops between 2000 and 2008, according to the estimates. Eight Southwest Virginia communities – Clinchport, Duffield, Dungannon, Gate City, Nickelsville, Weber City, Marion and Big Stone Gap – lost 5 percent or more of their residents.

The five communities that grew in addition to Glade Spring and Damascus were Abingdon, Va., Bluff City, Tenn., Bristol, Tenn., Saltville, Va., and Wytheville, Va. None of those saw growth rates of more than 6 percent.

Bernstein said populations increase for three main reasons: natural factors such as an increase in birth rates or decrease in death rates; migration to a particular area from inside the U.S. and migration to a particular area from outside the U.S.

“We can’t really determine which of these factors is driving a particular change in a city or town,” Bernstein said, adding that his agency does not monitor why communities gain or lose residents over time.

But Glade Spring Councilman Lee Coburn and Damascus Realtor Russell McBride are happy to fill in the blanks.

A revitalized downtown

One of the main things that convinced Coburn to move to Glade Spring in 2005 was its town square, which was almost full of vacant and empty buildings. Despite warnings from town residents who told Coburn he was “stupid for building in Glade because it was going to go away,” he bought these buildings and renovated them into attractive retail spaces.

Since then, Coburn said, five new businesses have opened their doors in the abandoned buildings that made up Glade Spring’s town square or have signed leases and will open in coming months.

Coburn and Dirk Moore, who is president of the development group Project Glade, said the new businesses will continue to attract people to the area and give folks who are already there a reason to stay.

“Our goal is to convince people who go to our schools and colleges to come back and live here,” said Moore, whose organization is dedicated to helping Glade Spring grow in a sustainable manner.

Coburn and Moore said they hope to keep moving forward with Glade Spring’s downtown improvements by getting fiber optic cable installed downtown and continuing to buy and renovate town square buildings.

“There are people who are really interested in this place and really proud of it,” Moore said, adding that the effort is one by both old-time town residents and newcomers.

Outdoor recreation

While Glade Spring’s downtown might be a key attraction, McBride said Damascus’ major draw is its natural beauty. The town is surrounded on three sides by national forests and is a featured spot on the Appalachian and Virginia Creeper trails, he said.

He said the recreational trails and public lands add abundant opportunities for those interested in cycling, hiking, hunting and fishing.

“Damascus has become a premier outdoor recreation destination,” McBride said, adding that those outdoor opportunities convinced him to move there three years ago.

McBride said he saw another opportunity when he arrived on the scene and that was Damascus’ relatively cheap land and real estate prices compared to places that boast similar outdoor opportunities such as Boone and Asheville, N.C. He took advantage of cheap land prices by opening Damascus Realty, a firm McBride said now boasts 125 to 300 hits a day on its Web site.

The most common things McBride said he hears from his clients are that they, like he, “fell in love with the” area’s outdoor opportunities and decided to stay.

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