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WHEELING — New numbers from the U.S. Census show the city of Wheeling has continued to decline in population, but a silver lining in the dark cloud of continued exodus is that the rate of loss is steadily declining.

The new figures from the 2020 Census released last week showed Wheeling’s official population as 27,052. That is a 5.06% drop from the 2010 Census, when Wheeling’s population stood at 28,494. City officials expressed disappointment, yet not surprise.

However, the slowing rate of change shown by the city’s population decline over the past several decades gave way to a glimmer of hope for the future.

“If you want to draw any conclusions from current U.S. Census numbers, you first need to look at the historical context,” Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott said. “The simple fact of the matter is that Wheeling has been losing population every year since the mid 1930s And in all fairness, Wheeling would have also likely lost population in the 1920s were it not for significant annexation of the neighborhoods beyond downtown.”

Looking at the big picture, the decline in Wheeling’s population has been dramatic, with the figure in 1940 at around 61,200 people dwindling through the decades. The city’s population has dropped in each 10-year count performed by the U.S. Census Bureau, with the most dramatic loss over the past century occurring from 1980-1990, when a decline of 19.01% was recorded.

“So we

“So we are looking at nearly a century of population loss in our community,” Elliott said. “There is nothing to celebrate in that fact. It is what it is. But with that said, a close examination of the data shows some very encouraging trends.”

The mayor noted that according to U.S. Census Bureau figures, the rate of decline has steadily weakened since the big hit in the 1990s. Following the 2000 count, the percentage of decline was nearly cut in half at 10.29%. A smaller loss was recorded in 2010 at 8.95%, leading to the 2020 decline at just over 5%.

While the most recent rate of decline is the best the city has seen in years, that percentage of loss is still greater than that of the state of West Virginia’s 3.2% population loss from 2010 to 2020 — a population decline that ranks highest in the nation among all other states and a situation that will cause the Mountain State to lose a congressional seat.

The slowing of the rate of decline in Wheeling is leaving room for hope among those who believe in the Friendly City and the many transformative things that are currently taking place to pave a brighter future.

“Between 1970 and 1980, we lost 10.62% of our population,” Elliott said. “And between 1980 and 1990, we lost a staggering 19.01%. In each succeeding decade, however, our percentage population decline has been decreasing. In the last decade, for example, our loss was only 5.06%. Though still cause for concern, I Iook at the long-term trend lines and see Wheeling having turned the corner on population loss.”

Elliott said there was no doubt that the city lost a lot of young people between the 1980s and early 2000s, leaving the city with a population nearly a decade older than the national average.

“That has guaranteed us a period where basic demography projects that we would have more obituaries than births in our community,” he said. “We are still feeling the demographic effects of having an older population. But while hard data in this regard is difficult to come by, we certainly seem to have stemmed the tide of outmigration that defined prior generations.”

The mayor said he continues to meet more and more young people who see a future in the city of Wheeling. He said he also has met dozens of people who have returned home to Wheeling after decades of being away.

“Will the 2030 census show actual population growth? It is too early to say, but we are already outpacing U.S. Census estimates,” Elliott said. “Last year, for example, they estimated a Wheeling population of 26,430 — representing more than 600 people less than were actually counted in 2020. So that is encouraging.”

Elliott said he and his colleagues in city government need to continue focusing on efforts to improve the quality of life in the community in hopes of setting the table to make the nagging trend of population loss finally get turned around.

“We need to keep more of our homegrown talent and continue to lure those seeking big city amenities with small city comfort and low cost of living,” Elliott said.