THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 2, 1994 TAG: 9412020528
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
Judging by the interstate traffic, it might have seemed like a million people moved in.
Not so.
Hampton Roads' population grew by only 1 percent last year, lagging behind the state and other metropolitan areas like Richmond and Northern Virginia, according to preliminary estimates by the University of Virginia.
An extra 15,600 people boosted Hampton Roads' population from 1.45 million in 1992 to 1.47 million in 1993. From 1991 to 1992, the number of residents here grew by 1.7 percent.
Since 1990, the population in this region has grown by 3.6 percent.
``Over the past five to six years, there has been a downward trend in the growth rate,'' said John W. Whaley, director of economic services for the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission.
Defense budget cuts are mostly to blame for the declining growth rate, Whaley said.
``We're losing $400 million a year as a result of the defense cuts,'' he said. ``We now have 40,000 people unemployed. That's up fairly dramatically since the 1980s.''
Chesapeake, Suffolk and Virginia Beach accounted for much of the growth, while populations in Portsmouth and Norfolk continued to drop, according to the study by U.Va.'s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
The number of residents grew 3.9 percent to 170,400 in Chesapeake; 1.3 percent to 53,800 in Suffolk; and 1.5 percent to 416,200 in Virginia Beach.
Although Chesapeake and Virginia Beach had the largest growth rates last year, Suffolk has increasingly drawn suburbanites.
``There is an acceleration of population growth going on in Suffolk,'' Whaley said. ``The numbers still aren't very large yet. But it's a rather significant trend.
``Suffolk is a city that is changing rapidly.''
The completion of Interstate 664 allowed for much of the development in northern Suffolk, said Thomas N. Waller, the city's economic development director. Thousands of homes are being built in that area, he said.
Meantime, Virginia Beach may have to take a back seat until its water problems are solved, developers and analysts have said. The city is fighting to tap into Lake Gaston, but North Carolina has fought the move.
The drop in Norfolk's population, 2 percent, and Portsmouth's, 0.2 percent, is common with older, established cities with fewer pieces of land to develop. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
STAFF
MORE PEOPLE LOVE LIVING IN VIRGINIA
Since the 1990 U.S. Census, the University of Virginia estimates
that there are about 300,000 more people in the state.
SOURCE: Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, University of
Virginia
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB