12 Most Hated Towns on Virginia's Coastline — Locals Named Them

Get The Virginia Retirement Guide ⬇️ https://virginiaretire.com What you'll find in this video: A city of fewer than 100,000 people that recorded 37 homicides in a single year. A ferry town that lost more than half its population. A mill that erased 1,100 jobs in one announcement. And a city where 44 percent of working households struggle to pay for the basics. These 12 places won't show up on any postcard. That's exactly why their stories matter. 🏘️ PLACES FEATURED (with the ranking stat and the resident rating from Niche) Cape Charles, Virginia — peaked at 2,527 people in 1930, 1,178 in 2020; rated 4.33 stars from only 6 reviews Parksley, Virginia — 979 residents in 1980, 816 in 2020; rated 3.75 stars from just 4 reviews Onancock, Virginia — lost about 23 percent of its population in twenty years; rated 3.6 stars from 5 reviews Accomac, Virginia — median household income about $46,000; rated 2 stars from one single review Exmore, Virginia — median household income about $29,000, the lowest on the list; rated 3.25 stars from 4 reviews Hampton, Virginia — about 248 violent crimes per 100,000 people; rated 3.72 stars from 359 reviews Chesapeake (South Norfolk), Virginia — about 339 per 100,000; rated 3.93 stars from 818 reviews Suffolk, Virginia — about 371 per 100,000; rated 3.79 stars from 312 reviews Franklin, Virginia — about 461 per 100,000; rated 3.17 stars from only 12 reviews Norfolk, Virginia — about 470 per 100,000; rated 3.73 stars from 466 reviews Newport News, Virginia — about 736 per 100,000; rated 3.62 stars from 464 reviews Portsmouth, Virginia — about 752 per 100,000, the highest on the Virginia coast; rated 3.21 stars from 205 reviews 📌 WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER Why the trouble is concentrated in specific cities, and often in specific neighborhoods inside them What the shipyards, the mills, and the railroads left behind when the jobs and the growth moved elsewhere Why residents rate most of these places better than the numbers suggest The signs of movement: homicides across the region fell from 217 in 2022 to 144 in 2024 🚀 KEY TAKEAWAY The crime and the poverty are real, but they are concentrated in particular neighborhoods, usually the ones the shipyards, the mills, the railroads, and the new subdivisions left behind. They are not the whole city, and they are certainly not the whole coast. The people who live in these places still, on balance, like where they live, and they have not given up on it. — 👉 Which Virginia coast town surprised you the most? Drop a comment and let us know. 👉 Live in one of these twelve places? Tell us what we got right and what we got wrong. #VirginiaCoast #HamptonRoads #VirginiaTowns