Photo: Puritan Nerd · CC BY-SA 4.0Farmville is a college town: 35% of residents are students
Measured by family income, Farmville is behind 80% of U.S. towns. For jobs and income Farmville is better than 12% of U.S. towns (D); for walkability it is more walkable than 88% of U.S. towns (A). At home: 6% of workers have no commute at all (Virginia 18%).
Census ACS 2020–24, Census LEHD 2024, EPA Smart Location Database. How the two grades are made
The commute and the jobs: Farmville in brief
Farmville draws workers from far and wide
The 5,156 jobs in Farmville are filled from a wide area. Farmville’s own residents hold 10% and the ten next-biggest home towns 9%; the other 81% come from many towns beyond those. The commute map ↓
No single place dominates Farmville’s commute
The biggest draw, Richmond, gets only 4% of working residents, and 62% work outside the top ten towns entirely. Farmville residents fan out across the region. The commute map ↓
Farmville is where the jobs are
Farmville has 5,156 jobs, 2.2 for every working resident. Day and night ↓
Commutes from Farmville are quick
The average trip to work takes 19 minutes, against 27 across Virginia. That’s about 61 hours a year less on the road than the typical Virginia worker. Time on the road ↓
A big share show a job far from home
40% of working residents have a main job more than 50 miles away. Part of that is employers that report every worker at one head office, so not all of those trips happen daily. How far ↓
Written from the Census figures on this page. Commute flows, distances and jobs are Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs only (the self-employed aren’t counted); commute time and working from home are from the Census American Community Survey.
Jobs & income in Farmville: the grade in detail
All three inputs sit close together, so no single one decides Farmville’s grade.
Where students are 15% or more of the people the Census checks for poverty (16% here), the grade uses the rate without them: 17.0%, against 20.4% for all residents. Unemployment (2.9%) is left out here: students looking for part-time work count as unemployed. Income is ranked as median family income ($70,238), since student households pull the household median down ($40,966).
A fairly firm grade. Within the Census margins of error for family income and poverty, Farmville could be anywhere from D− to C+.
Where Farmville’s workforce comes from
Where Farmville clocks in
4% of workers
2% of workersLines run between town centers. The top 10 towns each way; “Everywhere else” is the rest, including other states.
A thicker line means more commuters. Switch between where residents work and where the people who work here live.
Who commutes out of Farmville, and who commutes in
On a workday 1,798 residents head out to work, 524 work right here, and 4,632 people come in from elsewhere.
About 10,000 people are in Farmville on a workday afternoon, 37% more than live here.
2.2 jobs for every working resident, so more people commute in than out.
Workday population = residents − those who work elsewhere + those who come in (the Census “commuter-adjusted” method). Residents: Census survey; commuters: LEHD 2024, primary jobs.
About 19 minutes each way, quicker than most of Virginia
Round trip, about 230 workdays a year: roughly 6 full days in the car, bus or train.
Average commute minutes, one way
of Farmville workers work from home, vs 18% across Virginia. Their commute is the hallway.
Share of the 2,614 commuters (the 6% who work from home are left out). Across Virginia: 83% drive alone, 3% take transit; U.S.: 81% and 4%. Census ACS 2020–24.
From the Census survey of workers who don’t work from home.
How far it is to work from Farmville
About 40% show a job over 50 miles away. Some of that is real, and some is employers that report every worker at a head office, so a few long commutes are on paper only.
Straight-line distance from each worker’s home block to their main job’s block. LEHD 2024.
Every working resident’s trip, home to work, as the crow flies. Roads add to it, so real drives run longer.
The kinds of work in Farmville
5,156 jobs are based in Farmville.
What kind of work
What it pays
Who does it
Jobs based in Farmville, 2014 → 2024: 6,029 → 5,156. Big swings can come from how a large employer reports its locations, not only from real openings or closings.
Primary jobs covered by unemployment insurance (not the self-employed). Pay is monthly earnings. LEHD 2024.
Here is what they are, next to the jobs Farmville’s own residents hold wherever they work.
Good to walk, short on transit: Farmville
How people get to work scores higher than the street layout: 22.3% of commuters walk, bike or take transit, against 5.7% across Virginia, on an EPA index of 7.8.
A firm grade. EPA’s index has no published margin of error; the commuting share comes from a Census survey of 2,772 workers.
How TownRatings grades walkability →
Transit service: no data. EPA’s transit file has no stops for most of this county (its agencies had not published schedules in the format EPA used in 2020). That is missing data, not a finding that there is no bus or train.
Households without a car (shown, not graded). 10.4% of Farmville households have no vehicle (Virginia 6.1%, U.S. 8.4%). 1% of Farmville’s commuters take a bus or train.
How Farmville compares with U.S. towns of 5,300 to 10,300
| # | Town | People | Household income | Poverty | Unemployment | Work in town | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huntington Woods MI | 6,274 | $190K | 2.2% | 0.9% | 2% | A+ |
| 2 | Glendale MO | 6,060 | $171K | 2.0% | 0.3% | 2% | A+ |
| 3 | Des Peres MO | 9,102 | $224K | 2.0% | 0.5% | 5% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 5 | Pimmit Hills VA | 6,589 | $173K | 1.6% | 1.3% | 3% | A+ |
| 6 | Braddock VA | 6,536 | $212K | 0.9% | 1.0% | 2% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 11 | Difficult Run VA | 9,938 | $250K | 1.4% | 1.9% | 3% | A+ |
| … | |||||||
| 2,843 | Baker City OR | 10,071 | $62K | 14.0% | 7.2% | 55% | D |
| 2,844 | Marion SC | 6,028 | $31K | 26.8% | 4.7% | 13% | D |
| 2,845 | Farmville VA | 7,593 | $41K | 20.4% | 2.9% | 23% | D |
| 2,846 | Alma MI | 9,304 | $53K | 21.7% | 6.9% | 24% | D |
| 2,847 | Slippery Rock Township PA | 8,349 | $57K | 23.4% | 7.1% | 5% | D |
| … | |||||||
| 3,111 | Shiprock NM | 7,610 | $36K | 34.6% | 14.9% | 6% | D− |
Census ACS 2020–24 (income, poverty, unemployment), Census LEHD (work in town), TownRatings Jobs & income grades. Each town links to its Work & commute page.
Ranked on the Jobs & income grade: the towns either side of Farmville, the top three, the last and three more from Virginia.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Two sources, two years. Trips, distances and jobs based here: Census LEHD 2024, primary jobs, where the employer reports them. Income, poverty, unemployment, commute time and how people travel: Census ACS 2020–24 averages.
- Students. 35% of residents are college students; the poverty input leaves off-campus students out (above).
- Straight lines, older transit. Miles are as the crow flies. EPA’s walkability and transit files use 2017–20 inputs.
Jobs and commuting in Farmville: questions
What is the median household income in Farmville?
$40,966 (±$7,734) (Census ACS 2020–24), against $93,170 across Virginia and $80,734 nationally.
What is the poverty rate in Farmville?
20.4% of residents live below the poverty line; leaving out college students, 17.0%. Virginia: 9.9%.
How long is the commute from Farmville?
19 minutes each way on average, against 27 across Virginia and 26 nationally. 6% of workers work from home.
Where do people who live in Farmville work?
23% work in town. The top destinations elsewhere are Richmond (4%, 53 mi), Lynchburg (3%, 44 mi), Crewe (2%, 17 mi) (Census LEHD 2024).
Is Farmville walkable?
Farmville is more walkable than 88% of U.S. towns (Walkability A): an EPA walkability index of 7.8 out of 20, and 22% of commuters walk, bike or take transit.
Can you get around Farmville without a car?
1% of commuters take transit and 10% of households have no car. EPA has no transit data for this county.
Commuter talk
Getting to work from Farmville, from the people who make the trip.
More of Farmville
Flows, distances and jobs: U.S. Census Bureau, LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES 8), 2024, primary jobs. Commute time, working from home and working out of state: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Distances are straight lines between home and work; real drives run longer. Walkability index, job access and transit service: U.S. EPA Smart Location Database. The two grades are our own summaries of these figures, not official ratings.