North Carolina is growing as a whole but some small- to mid-size cities are losing population. Most are located in the northeast part of the state, but one is located here in the Triad.
Between July 2015 and July 2016, Reidsville's population shrunk by 88 residents. That's a pretty small loss - less than one percent of its total number. But it was still enough to land Reidsville in the top ten of shrinking municipalities, according to data from the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Jay Donecker is Mayor of Reidsville. He says it's facing the same challenges that many other semi-rural cities are trying to address.
“With automation, many of the manufacturing jobs just don't exist anymore,” he says. “Consequently, these manufacturing facilities that are manufacturing hundreds of thousands of pieces do not require anywhere near the number of people to run them.”
Rockingham County has been hit hard with closings of major employers in recent years, including the MillerCoors Brewery facility in Eden and the Ball Corporation beveraging packaging plant - which supplied the brewery - in Reidsville.
Donacker says the shift to automation has left many recent graduates without the advanced skills necessary to run such a facility, and he hopes to see changes at the high school and community college level to help students become better prepared.
He says one of the ways the city is trying to fight the population decline is by pitching the area to retirees as a place to settle down. The city also hired a director of economic development four years ago, and since that time the city's tax base has grown.
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