Before tackling where Fairfax County is going, demographics-wise, it is perhaps instructive to look at where the community has been.
In 1970, Fairfax had a population of 454,300 and about 130,800 housing units. Growth then exploded for nearly two decades; by 1990, the population had grown to 818,600 and housing units had more than doubled to 302,500.
The ensuing three decades saw more modest growth rates as the county matured, but by 2005 the population had surpassed 1 million and by 2023 stood at 1.19 million residents living in about 432,600 housing units.
(All data are from Fairfax County government’s 2023 demographic report. Find it at https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/demographics/sites/demographics/files/Assets/demographicreports/fullrpt.pdf.)
During the 50 years from 1970 to 2020, the population aged as the Baby Boom generation moved from childhood to adulthood and now into seasoned-citizen status. The median county age of 25.2 in the 1970 Census grew to 30.1 in 1980, 33.1 in 1990, 35.9 in 2000, 37.3 in 2010 and 38.3 in 2020.
In 1970, about 42 percent of the county’s population was under 20 years old, while 3 percent was 65 and older. In 2020, those figures had evolved to 25 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
Looking back even further – to 1950 – and changes are even more evident.
In 1950 Census figures, more than three-quarters of Fairfax’s housing stock was single-family-detached, a rate that grew to nearly 86 percent as Fairfax became a prime bedroom community in the 1960s. It then began a sustained decline as townhouses, condominiums and apartments began to grab a larger share – by 2000, single-family homes were down to half the county’s housing stock, while by 2023 it was 45.5 percent and is projected to decline to 39.8 percent by 2050. That’s roughly the same percentage that demographers believe will be in the apartment/condo sector that year.
And how many residents will there be in Fairfax County in 2050? The county’s data suggest just under 1.38 million, an increase of about 15 percent from the projected 1.2 million of 2025.
That forecast anticipates relatively modest growth hovering between 0.5 percent and 1 percent per year, with total housing units rising to 520,000 during the same period.
While the rate of population growth among Fairfax’s nine magisterial districts is expected to be uneven during that quarter-century period, all nine are expected to show growth.
Among the three towns within Fairfax County, Herndon is anticipated to see growth from the current 22,200 to about 29,200 during the next 25 years, with Vienna rising only slightly from 17,279 to 17,552. For smaller Clifton, county demographers anticipate no significant growth from the current population of about 300.
