Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 9, 1994 TAG: 9402090210
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The number of town residents jumped by 9 percent - from 15,004 to 16,360 - in the two years since the 1990 census, the bureau has estimated.
Blacksburg and Radford both showed more modest increases of around 1 percent.
However, there may be a wrinkle in the government's figures. To believe Uncle Sam's number-crunchers, you also have to accept that the town's population rose by 1,356 while the population for all of Montgomery County went up by only 600. That's using the higher of two estimates of the county's 1992 population.
Census Bureau statisticians could not be reached Tuesday to explain the apparent discrepancy.
But Town Manager John Lemley, who hadn't seen the bureau's figures Tuesday afternoon, said the government's numbers square with his own. While the census folks use a complicated formula to derive their numbers, Lemley's got a simpler method. He just multiplies the number of new water connections - 401 from mid-1990 to this past December - by a factor of about three.
That works out to around 1,200, "so you're in the ball park," he said.
"I've found over the years that using that [formula] comes pretty close," he said.
Lemley, who's been town manager for more than 37 years, attributes the big jump to an availability of more affordable housing than in neighboring communities, and to growth in areas the town annexed from Montgomery County a few years ago.
Lemley said expansion in the Belmont Estates and Belmont Farms areas off Peppers Ferry Road "caught fire" after the town put sewer lines into the area. The Windmill Hills and Diamond Pointe residential developments behind The Farmhouse restaurant off Cambria Street also continue to grow, he said.
Town Planner Rudy Rash agrees on both counts. "The entire town is experiencing growth," he said Tuesday.
Christiansburg's proximity to "every single interstate and U.S. highway leaving the Roanoke Valley and Shenandoah Valley" also is a big plus, he said.
He pointed out that the lion's share of Montgomery County's sales tax revenues are generated within Christiansburg, probably no surprise because the New River Valley Mall and the Market Place are both within town limits.
Both town officials also say many members of the Virginia Tech and Radford University communities have moved into Christiansburg.
Virginia Employment Commission statistician Don Lillywhite said employment figures have remained fairly stable in the county over the past year.
He also suggested that the town, whose size groups it in with towns with population above 10,000, might have benefited from the surge in Virginia's birth rate since the last census. More than 1,600 babies were born in Montgomery County in 1991 and 1992.
"You can certainly get increases in population without increases in employment," he said.
by CNB