East Whiteland tops Pa. population growth
When one thinks of this Chester County township, it is easy to think of it as a space between somewhere and someplace else.
East Whiteland, after all, seems like just land that runs along the Route 30 and Route 202 corridors between Paoli and Exton, with perhaps little to show for it but a strip of asphalt from Malvern to Frazer. It’s Native American name, “The Dark Valley,” appeared apt.
So, hold onto your roadmaps and gather in the following information: between July 2020 and July 2021, no other municipality in the state of Pennsylvania has had more people decide to live there. It has the largest number of new residents in that year — 866 people — and one of the highest rates of growth — 5.9 percent — in the state, according to the Pennsylvania State Data Center (PSDC).
Although he expressed surprise at the designation, longtime resident Richard “Rich” Orlow said he could understand both the why and how of the township’s population growth.
“I think that a large part of the reason is the quality of life” in East Whiteland, Orlow, the vice chairman of the three-member Board of Supervisors, in an interview Friday. “It is very accessible. It has everything you want. You can get anywhere very easily. And we’re not overwhelmed with retail clusters like Exton of King of Prussia.”
As for the “how” of its growth, Orlow, an attorney and accountant, cited a number of factors. Although real estate development slowed considerably in the post-2008 economic crash years, the COVID-19 pandemic tended to lower interest rates to allow “just about everybody to buy a house.”
Developers began planning for building both homes and apartments in East Whiteland before the pandemic struck, nd as home because more affordable across the county, they were quite
available in the township. Places like the 800-plus unit Atwater development on Route 29, luxury apartments like The Yards along Route 30, and the massive Worthington development off Route 202 were ready for occupancy just at the right time, he said.
“We have a good mix of all kinds of housing units,” said Orlow, who has lived in the township with his family and been active in civic affairs since 1989.
According to the Census statistics cited by the PSDC, East Whiteland now has an estimated population of 14,768, making it the eighth largestpopulated municipality in the county. (The other nine, in order, are Tredyffrin, with a population of 31,798; West Goshen, with 23,168; West Whiteland, with 19,810; Uwchlan, with 19.081; Phoenixville, with 19,029; West Chester, with 18,630; East Goshen, with 18,344; West Bradford, with 14,631; and Caln, with 14,379.)
Of the county’s 72 municipalities, 42 saw population increases while 30 — including Tredyffrin, East Goshen, Uwchaln and Coatesville lost population. Those others experiencing large population growth in the period include Elverson, which went from 1,330 to 1,387 residents; Upper Uwchlan, which went from 12,319 to 12,639 residents; Phoenixville, which went from 18,591 to 19,029 residents; and Kennett, which went from 8,404 to 8,724 residents.
Only two municipalities — West Marlborough and West Sadsbury — had neither growth nor decrease.
The county itself continued overall growth in faster numbers than other counties in the state, leading the way with 4,004 new residents, a growth rate of 0.7 percent. It’s population of 534,413 make it the seventh largest county in the state, behind Philadelphia, Allegheny, Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware and Lancaster.
“Chester County remains a highly desirable place for people to live, which means we’re seeing in-migration,” said Brian O’Leary, the director of the county’s Planning Commission. Census figures show 3,844 people moving here in the months between April 2020 and July 2021.
“The pandemic has definitely shifted things a little bit,” O’Leary said. “Prepandemic, we were seeing more in-migration due to international migration rather than domestic, while recently the domestic has been much stronger. Also, natural increase, births over deaths, was stronger pre-pandemic. Many people attribute the higher domestic in-migration to people leaving more expensive urban cores, like New York City, for less expensive places that offer more indoor and outdoor space.
He agreed with Orlow about the reasons East Whiteland’s growth and predicted the next boom area would be its neighbor to the west. “The East Whiteland population increase is most likely due to recently completed housing developments. I would expect West Whiteland to show significant increases between 2021 and 2022, since about 1,100 units were completed in the township in 2021.
“Most of the population growth is occurring in our growth centers as we see new housing being built in places that were previously primarily non-residential,” he said. “Much of this housing is apartments or townhouses. This is an interesting difference from the 1990s and early 2000s, when a higher share of the housing was single-family detached and in more rural parts of the county.”