Cheering the region's population growth during the past decade does not have the same excitement as rooting for your favorite driver at the Daytona 500 but population declines are worse than being stuck in the pits.

Fortunately, our region is out on the track, lapping toward the future at a competitive pace. Prince Edward, Farmville, Buckingham and Cumberland all experienced meaningful population gains, according to the 2010 data released by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Farmville saw its population rise by 20 percent (for a total of 8,216)-and not solely attributable to enrollment increases at Longwood University, though populations in dozens of localities also have one or more colleges. Prince Edward County's population, reflecting the town's growth, increased by 18.5 percent (23,368), Cumberland by 11.5 percent (10,052), and Buckingham by 9.7 percent (17,146).

Those percentages reflect healthy communities. Population gain or loss is one way to check a community's pulse. It is a vital sign.

People move into an area or choose to remain in an area and raise families there because of the quality of life offered, because the future feels right to them there. Sustained exodus, on the other hand, is much like passengers scampering to lifeboats, abandoning a ship they fear is drifting backwards or sinking.

In fact, approximately 30 Virginia cities and counties did experience population declines from 2000 to 2010, proving that risk and reality does exist to a noticeable, and for those communities, unsettling degree.

Statewide, Virginia's population rose by 13 percent. The healthy legitimacy of our own area's population growth is ably reinforced by the telling fact that the population growth in Prince Edward, Buckingham, and Cumberland is a three-county average of 13.2 percent, matching the state's population over the same period. So we are keeping pace, not falling back into lap traffic or stalling out in the pits.

And we are passing some localities along the way. More than half of Virginia's population growth is attributable to booming populations in Northern Virginia and, in fact, 40 percent of the state's population growth during the past decade occurred in just three Northern Virginia counties.

Population stagnation, or decline, is obviously occurring and our communities should take pride and heart in the vibrancy of their own population gains-each of them an endorsement of the kind of life that can be lived within their county lines.

No, we don't want our communities to lose their rural flavor and, yes, too much growth would place too great a demand on local government and infrastructure, in addition to other negative repercussions.

Loudoun County saw its population go through the stratosphere, sonic-booming by more than 84 percent since the 2000 census. We don't want that here. The right balance of growth to sustain and nurture the economy and quality of life is our checkered flag, with a landscape that retains its fields and forests.

Ironically, population losses can also place financial burdens on localities because there is less tax revenue to pay for the basic needs of the community, such as education. And population losses are also often accompanied by job and employer losses, which also deal a heavy blow to revenue and the ability to meet the needs of those who do choose to remain.

Steady sustainable growth is a positive outcome that we can all be glad of sharing, continuously crossing that finish line, we hope, together.

-JKW-