A rendering of CoStar Group’s corporate campus, currently under construction in downtown Richmond (Image courtesy CoStar Group)
It’s been almost six years since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted life globally, yet some short-term adaptations became lasting features of the U.S. economy. Today, the emergence of remote and hybrid jobs enables professionals to carry their work and income to new horizons.
In Central Virginia, transplants from more expensive regions within the state and beyond have chosen the Richmond area for its comparatively affordable lifestyle. The result is a wave of migration here as people leverage their equity from higher-priced markets to find more bang for the buck and a comfy quality of life.
Hamilton Lombard, a demographics expert at the University of Virginia Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, says the Richmond region’s population boom is a generational milestone. “There’s no other period in the metro area’s history where they’ve pulled in nearly anything close to ... 56,000 people in the last four years,” Lombard says of the Richmond region. “In the 2000s, during the housing boom, it was 36,000 in a four-year period. So, it’s massive.”
In February 2025, Lombard told Axios that 2024 marked the first time since 2013 that more people moved into the state than out. The top five states people leave in favor of Virginia are Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, California and New York, according to a November 2025 study from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. (Four of those states, excluding New York, are also destinations for those leaving the commonwealth.)
Within the state, Lombard says, people continue to leave the Washington, D.C., orbit to relocate elsewhere in Virginia, notably Richmond. “Northern Virginia is a huge contributor to that migration into Richmond. And that has just ramped up.”
In the region’s population shift, millennials have driven the lion’s share of relocations. Lombard says that those in the 25-44 age bracket account for three-fifths of people who’ve migrated into the region from 2020 to 2024. According to a November 2025 state demographics study from JLARC, the average age of newcomers to Virginia is 31.
The generation’s mobility may also be a reflection of its earning power. According to a 2024 Wall Street Journal report, millennials hold more wealth at their age than did Generation X or the baby boomers.
Realtor Dave Seibert of Seibert Real Estate says the region’s cost comparison to Northern Virginia and other major cities tends to be the most common reason many of his relocating clients choose the Richmond area. “It’s the No. 1 reason,” he says, “and then … proximity, just broadly the location benefits, just access to some major markets in D.C., Philadelphia, New York.”
Leaving the City Core
The dynamics of Central Virginia’s rising population are multifaceted, Lombard notes. Some coming to the region are aiming for areas away from the city and suburbs. “Gallup has done surveys for years asking people, ‘Where do you live and where do you want to live?,’ and consistently you find a bias towards lower density,” he says.
As of late 2020, 48% of people surveyed said they prefer to live in a town or rural area, up from 39% in 2018, Gallup reported.
Census Bureau numbers published in 2024 showed significant population gains in less developed localities outside Richmond. From 2020 to 2024, New Kent County grew 18.6%, Goochland 14% and Louisa 12%.
Rising home prices within the greater Richmond footprint — the city plus Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties — have pushed relocators into more affordable localities, another trend enabled by remote and hybrid jobs, Lombard says.
“It is impressive when you look at those numbers [in] places like King William [County]. A decade ago, their young adult population was shrinking,” he says. “Now it’s growing strongly. They’re bringing in hundreds and hundreds of young adults. It’s just a total change. The same thing if you look at a place like Amelia County. That’s a bit of a sea change for them [compared to] where they were a decade ago.”
Push and Pull
Housing, living expenses and traffic congestion may push people here from bigger metro areas such as Northern Virginia, Philadelphia or New York. Yet state and local economic development officials say the region’s quality of life — such as robust options for food, entertainment and recreation — does just as much to attract cohorts of younger folks to the Richmond area.
Garrett Hart, director of Chesterfield County’s economic development authority, says the focus on recruiting companies as a primary objective has pivoted more toward creating comfortable communities that will lure skilled workers. “The paradigm has shifted,” Hart says. “We’re in the talent-attraction business, so that the industries will follow the talent. So, it’s the worker coming first. The industries and the business [are] coming second.”
He says 37% of the people who moved into Virginia from 2020 to 2024 settled in the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area. “And 49% of those people moved to Chesterfield,” Hart says. “I mean, we work really hard to … be an attractive locality for young millennials in the workforce. That’s our target.”
Anthony Romanello, outgoing director of the Henrico County Economic Development Authority, adds that the portability of remote jobs helps deepen the potential talent pool. “Knowledge workers can work anywhere in the world as long as there’s Wi-Fi,” says Romanello, who retired from the EDA in January. “With the business growth that we’ve had in Central Virginia over the last few years, that certainly is creating more and more opportunities for professionals to live and work here.”
A rendering of Lego’s planned 1.7 million-square-foot manufacturing complex in Chesterfield County (Image courtesy Lego Group)
Capital Investment Surge
Virginia has welcomed a groundswell of corporate investment over the past five years, according to the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, totaling more than 68,000 jobs and $104 billion in capital expenditures.
In the Richmond region, the Greater Richmond Partnership has helped secure $5.5 billion in new investment and more than 7,200 jobs. The big hits include a new $1 billion Lego manufacturing facility in Chesterfield, slated to open in 2027 and create 1,700 jobs, and CoStar Group’s expansion in downtown Richmond — $460 million for a two-building research and technology campus on the riverfront and 2,000 new jobs.
Virginia’s unrelenting push to grow and nurture its business ecosystem has earned the state recognition as one of CNBC’s “Top States for Business” for eight years running.
‘We’re in a Talent War’
Despite the quality-of-life bells and whistles inspiring people to relocate to Central Virginia, the region’s economic development officials feel the pressure from other states competing to win some of the same corporate suitors. To stay ahead, VEDP’s Virginia Talent Accelerator Program helps plan and execute workforce recruitment strategies for companies looking to plant roots in the state.
Michael Ivey, vice president of marketing and communications for the Greater Richmond Partnership, notes a prospective company’s principal concerns are finding available commercial sites and securing the right workforce. “Being able to help these companies to ramp up their employees as fast as possible, you have to work at the speed of business,” Ivey says. “If your locality does not have the people to fill a facility or an office, then they’re going look elsewhere.”
