Larger numbers of seniors and declining numbers of younger adults are forcing Arlington leaders to rethink how to allocate services in the fiscal 2027 budget.
Demographic shifts are also calling into question whether the cost of living is making it difficult for residents between ages 20 and 34 to establish roots in the county.
“We know there’s an issue — it’s how we’re going to address it,” County Board member Julius “JD” Spain, Sr., said at a March 3 budget work session.
Demographic data presented at the meeting show a 48% increase in county residents age 65 and older between 2014 and 2024, but a 6% drop in those aged 20 to 34 during the same period.
The shift “gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Spain said, because it will require changes in how county services are allocated, both to serve seniors and to encourage younger residents to move in and stick around. Leaders say that keeping younger residents in the county is particularly difficult.
“The barriers to actually settling down in Arlington are immensely higher than they were a decade ago,” said Board member Maureen Coffey.
At age 30, Coffey is the youngest Board member in county history, and is reportedly the first renter to have ever served in the office. While younger Millennials and older members of Generation Z may enjoy the urban-village ambiance in their 20s, they are now having to address hard financial choices, Coffey suggested.
She pointed to costs of housing, interest rates and child care as barriers to those who wish to raise families in the county. The county government can only do so much to encourage them to remain, she acknowledged.
“We can’t make people stay,” Coffey said.
While the 35-to-49 and 50-to-64 age groups showed population increases in Arlington between 2014 and 2024, they were relatively modest — 3% and 4%, respectively, according to data at the work session.
The issue of residents leaving the inner suburbs for less costly locales is hardly unique to 2026. Over the decades, many residents departed Arlington for Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties, where the cost of housing was lower.
Today, some are moving even further out in order to lower housing costs. Many were spurred by work-from-home policies enacted during Covid, but with many of those having been rescinded, there are signs of a shift back to living in localities closer to the majority of jobs.
Whether members of the under-34 cohort stay for the long haul could depend on their lifestyle choices, county demographer Elizabeth Hardy told Board members.
Many people in high-cost areas are choosing to delay having children until their 30s and 40s, when they are more settled and can afford to own a home, Hardy said.
Younger residents can afford to remain if they don’t have those additional costs, she suggested, but frequently depart once the bills start piling up.
“Those 20-to-34s, if they are having babies, they’re not going to stay,” Hardy said.
Coffey largely agreed.
“The folks who have kids may not choose to have them here, and the folks that have them here are going to have less kids than they used to,” she said.
Spain acknowledged that financial challenges for those under 40 often can force them to opt out of Arlington.
“It’s tough out there,” he said of economic conditions.
As for the growing cadre of seniors, County Manager Mark Schwartz acknowledged there are additional service needs required, and said his $1.69 billion budget proposal takes that into account.
