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Senior citizens get together for a regular bingo game Tuesday morning at the Bland County Senior Center. Forbes magazine recently named Bland County one of the top 20 fastest aging counties in the nation. Photo by Jean Farley

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Population predicament?

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

If age begets wisdom, Bland County rapidly is becoming a very profound place.
Unfortunately, though, sageness isn’t usually the thing that brings a stampede of new businesses hurrying to a community.
One of the nation’s preeminent business magazines, Forbes, has named Bland County as one of the top 20 fastest aging counties in America – a distinction the article states is “generally not good news for the folks that live there” as “a quickly aging population can wreak havoc on a county’s economy.”
Using recently released 2007 U.S. Census Bureau population estimates, the magazine ranked the county No. 19 based on the growth of its 65 and over population between 2003 and 2007 compared to its overall population growth.
The formula used to come up with the rankings also includes a ratio that helps account for the widely varying total population sizes from county to county.
Between 2003 and 2007, Bland County’s elderly population increased by 11.63 percent, while its overall population gained a mere 17 people – a total growth rate of 0.25 percent.
Although Bland County Administrator Jonathan Sweet said he wasn’t alarmed by the numbers, he added that a top 20 ranking was unexpected.
“I’m surprised to hear that we rated that high in the nation,” Sweet said.
Michael Armbrister, deputy director of the Mount Rogers Planning District Commission, said young people migrating out of the county accounts for most of the trend.
“Kids go to high school and then they go to college or go elsewhere to find a job,” he said.
Sweet acknowledged that it has been a challenge to convince youngsters that opportunities exist in the county.
“I’ll be the first to admit that in the past we have had a negative image that we were backward or evolving slowly,” he said before adding that he believes “we’ve changed our image and we’re moving forward.”
The county administrator said that he was encouraged by a Junior Achievement program he did with the local high school students last year where he estimated 85 percent of the students expressed their desire to stay in Bland County or return after college.
While the county’s existing industries are strong, Armbrister said there aren’t a lot of new jobs being created.
“The county is in kind of an economic transition,” he said. “They’re trying to combat that aging population.”
The aging trend, however, isn’t a new one for the county.
Going back an additional three years to 2000, the county’s 65 and over population has grown by 16.92 percent compared to a total population growth rate of 0.17 percent.
In the past 17 years, the county’s elderly population has grown from 888 in 1990 to 1,161 in 2007 – an increase of more than 30 percent that boosted the 65 and over population segment of the county’s total population from 13.63 to 16.87 percent.
The county’s overall growth in that time period was higher than in recent years at 5.66 percent, but still nowhere near the percentage gains in the 65 and over age group.
Despite some of the economic disadvantages an older population presents, both Sweet and Armbrister said the fast growth rate of the 65-plus age group also shows some of the locality’s strengths.
“Bland County is a family oriented county and people live here all their lives,” Sweet said.
“They don’t want to move away,” Armbrister added about people reaching retirement age in the county.
Sweet pointed out that elderly people also are often the ones most involved in community activities and exuding the most community pride.
“There’s a lot of value that those folks bring to our county,” he said.
Bland County also isn’t the only locality in the region getting older.
Each of nine other surrounding Southwest Virginia counties examined experienced a growth in its elderly population during the 2003-2007 time period – four in the face of declining total populations.
And although Bland County is aging most rapidly, its elderly population segment still lags behind many other counties in the region.
In fact, in 2003, Bland County’s 65 and over population segment was the lowest of the 10 counties examined, as its 15.15 percent portion of the total population easily was dwarfed by Grayson County’s top-ranking 18.82 percent figure.
Even with one of the fastest elderly population growth rates in the nation during the last four years, Bland County’s 65-plus population segment percentage in 2007 still ranks only fifth out of the 10 localities – behind Grayson, Carroll, Smyth and Wythe counties.
Bland County’s median age of 42 also continues to rank behind Grayson County’s area high of 44.3 years.
One person bucking the trend in Bland County is new dentist Olena Lambert.
After graduating from Bland High School in 1999 and completing nearly a decade of schooling, Lambert returned to the county last year to open up her own dental practice.
“My family is here and so I wanted to stay close to my family,” Lambert said in explaining why she returned.
While Lambert has made a successful return, she acknowledged that she had to create employment for herself in order to be able to come back home.
“I really didn’t feel that there were a lot of opportunities,” she said regarding non-entrepreneurial prospects.
Lambert said, though, that the county’s Economic Development Authority was invaluable in helping her start her business, and she said she thinks there are resources available for others looking to create their own opportunities.
She added that community support is crucial for economic success – something that Bland County provides in excess.
“A lot of my patients are from Bland,” she said. “[There’s] definitely a sense of community, friends and neighbors pitching in to help people out in tough times.”
Armbrister also pointed to the EDA as one of the county’s strong points and praised the county for embracing tourism and other economic initiatives.
Sweet said entering into regional projects is an important way to combat the limitations of a small population.
“No community in Southwest Virginia is going to be able to compete in the global marketplace alone,” the county administrator said. “We’re involved regionally and we do so because it’s a competitive market out there.”
Regardless of industrial developments, history and geography show Bland County isn’t a likely spot for a population boom.
Between the 1900 census and the 2000 census a century later, Bland County’s population grew by 25 percent.
At first glance that number doesn’t appear too low.
But when compared with the United States’ population growth rate during those same 100 years – 270 percent, from 76 million to 281 million – its apparent even moderate growth in Bland County is a tough task.
Sweet also cited large portions of the county taken up by interstate, National Forest and the Appalachian Trail as areas that can’t be turned into residential or industrial development.
The county administrator acknowledged that a booming population isn’t realistic or even necessarily desirable for Bland County.
“We don’t need a large population,” he said. “Only a small portion of Bland County is developable. We’re not primed for population growth…It’s more important for us to refresh our population than it is to significantly grow it.”
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 1-800-655-1406 or .