Roanoke's population, like that every other urban center in Virginia, has been in decline for a couple of decades now. But, as reported by Jay Conley in today's paper, estimates from the respected Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service indicate that for the last two years, the city's population has actually increased by a total of 833 people.

The bleeding appears to have been stemmed, but what remains unclear (and forgive me for belaboring the metaphor) is what or who is supplying the clot.

These are only estimates, but from a very credible group that offers them with the note that they fly in the face of their own earlier predictions. They are based on a methodology that takes into account birth and death rates, school enrollment, migration information from the IRS, and other factors.

City officials have been pushing for years now to reverse the city's decline into poor demographic health: an increasing abundance of the needy, unhealthy collecting of the poor in certain areas, decaying housing stock and ongoing flight by the white and well-heeled. These Assistant City Manager Brian Townsend said the good news from the Cooper Center jibes nicely with a period of economic growth and vitality in the city, so it all kind of makes sense.

We Roanokers tend to be afflicted with low self-esteem as a community. I guess we've seen too many leave us behind, whether it's Norfolk Southern or our neighbors bound for someplace "better," like Charlotte, or Atlanta, or Botetourt. So, on one level, I'm just flattered people still choose to live in my hometown.

But I'm anxious to see if the apparent pattern continues another year, and I'm even more anxious to learn where this growth really is, which we'll know for certain come the next census. Is it an influx of the young professionals courted by so many communities these days? Retirees? Or is it more of the region's low-income families settling here for the same reasons the impoverished have always congregated in Roanoke: lots of human services, affordable housing, public transportation, and so on?

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