Not all is well in Virginia. Vacated office parks are dragging down local tax coffers. Home values in the exurbs of Fairfax and Loudoun counties arelagging the rest of the region. The federal government continues to slim its workforce and its work space, which historically does not bode well for other sectors.
But there is little doubt that things are on the upswing in the commonwealth, particularly after data reported by the U.S. Department of Commerce Tuesday showed that Virginia posted 1.4 percent GDP growth in 2015, well above its nearly flat 2014 GDP which ranked third-to-last nationally.
That growth isn’t going to set the world on fire. It was 32nd nationally, just ahead of New York and Michigan but behind Maryland, which posted 1.5 percent growth. D.C. posted 2.5 percent growth in 2015, though it is typically compared to other urban cities and not larger states.
California and Oregon led the nation in 2015 GDP growth, at 4.1 percent, followed by Texas, Colorado and Montana.
