Traffic on West Broad Street in Richmond (Photo by Jay Paul)
Sorry, Richmond. Our worst fears are becoming reality.
RVA is turning into NOVA.
Or at least a mini version. If metro Richmond’s net in-migration, measured as the population growth from people moving in minus those moving out — 56,000 since 2020 — isn’t proof enough, witness the steady increase in traffic congestion and the statewide elections last fall.
Richmond, like most cities in Virginia, has long been a progressive stronghold (Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger won 87% of the vote on Nov. 4), but now Henrico and Chesterfield counties are shedding their purplish hues.
“Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield are starting to look like a mini-Northern Virginia,” longtime political scientist Bob Holsworth said in an interview shortly after the November election, pointing to the margins of victory for Spanberger in Henrico (39 percentage points) and Chesterfield (18 points). “I mean, this has become a second bastion of Democrat support outside of NOVA.”
Demographic shifts over the last two decades have made the white-flight suburbs more racially and economically diverse. Meanwhile, the entire metro region has seen an influx of new residents since the pandemic.
The rise of remote work in the early days of COVID-19 made RVA attractive to young professionals from up north. For those suddenly freed from daily commutes in the DMV, a two-hour drive down Interstate 95 opened a new portal of affordability, explains Hamilton Lombard, a demographer at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. Even with skyrocketing demand and dwindling housing stock, the average home price in Fairfax County remains more than double that of Richmond — $752,448 to $358,071, according to Zillow.
“Richmond region home prices are considerably lower than NOVA, and considerably lower than the Northeast,” Lombard says. Indeed, the population surge has continued in the years after the pandemic, suggesting Richmond’s appeal to northern transplants isn’t a one-off: RVA’s net population growth hit a 10-year peak in 2024, with 19,765 new residents moving in, according to Weldon Cooper.
The good news? If the mini-NOVA trend continues, RVA stands to get wealthier. Between 2019 and 2024, after adjusting for inflation, median earnings for workers in the Richmond region rose 5.3%, Lombard says. This means more disposable income and higher tax revenue for localities.
The bad news? The influx will require more investment in public infrastructure, such as roads. While traffic congestion is declining in NOVA, it’s increasing in metro Richmond, according to Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s 2025 Urban Mobility Report. The average commuter spent 42 hours stuck in traffic in 2024 compared to 35 hours in 2019.
Fortunately, RVA has the tools to keep up, thanks to regional entities like the Central Virginia Transportation Authority, created by the General Assembly in 2020, which funds regional projects through local sales and gas taxes.
Since 2020, the CVTA has collected more than $1 billion in tax revenues, with more than $520 million funneled back to the authority’s nine member localities, Chet Parsons, the authority’s executive director, told local officials and elected leaders during a meeting in early December. The CVTA has also generated $365 million for regional transportation projects and $156 million to support GRTC during that span.
“We need to continue doing what we’re doing, which is staying ahead of the curve and the financing,” Parsons said in a recent interview. “We can look north and see what real traffic is. We want [RVA] to stay just like it is.”
