Fairfax County Gets Grayer, More Diverse

Fairfax County settled into middle age during the past 10 years, becoming a stable but increasingly diverse suburb as its younger neighboring counties burgeoned, according to initial detailed numbers released last week based on the 2010 Census.

Fairfax, Virginia’s largest and wealthiest county grew by just over 110,000 people from 2000-2010, to pass 1 million people. But that represented just an 11 percent growth rate - below the state growth rate for the same period of 13 percent. The county grew by 14 percent during the 1990s.

“The numbers don’t show all that much surprise for Fairfax,” said Steve Farnsworth, an assistant professor of communications  at George Mason University who watches Fairfax County population and politics.

“It is getting more diverse in terms of the ethnic population," he said. "There has been relatively slow growth in recent years because there is so much rapid growth outside of Fairfax in Loudoun, Prince William and Fauquier," he said.

Loudoun County had nearly 170,000 people in 2000, then ballooned to nearly 315,000. Prince William grew to nearly a 500,000 people, a 43 percent increase. Fauquier County grew by 18 percent but still has a population of only 65,000.

Fairfax grew largely because of Latino and Asian immigrants. The white (not Hispanic) population of the county dropped from 58 percent to 55 percent.

The first large numbers of immigrants to Fairfax County were the Vietnamese who arrived in the mid-70s, folowed by  Salvadoreans.

Now Asians are the county's largest minority group at nearly 20 percent of the population, followed by Latinos at 15 percent. Blacks are less than 10 percent of folks in the county.

What does all this mean for the future? First the county will probably become a majority-minority county in about 10 years, Farnsworth predicted. Also, Fairfax is graying. It has a growing senior population and they are going to want more services.

“As the portion of seniors increase that will increase pressure for more services that are of importance to older residents," Farnsworth said.

"There will be more demands for senior enrichment programs, mass transit, senior programs. In eastern Fairfax inside the Beltway you are seeing more older communities and as time goes on more and more of Fairfax will resemble the demographics  of these older suburbs. That will create a lot of pressure on government to fund those services."