Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.25776/vgqg-tt25

Pages

176 pp.

Abstract

This is Old Dominion University’s 26th annual State of the Region: Hampton Roads report. While it represents the work of many people connected in various ways to the university, the report does not constitute an official viewpoint of Old Dominion University, its president, Brian Hemphill, Ph.D., the Board of Visitors, the Strome College of Business, or the generous donors who support the activities of the Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy.

This year’s report provides an opportunity to reflect on the region’s economic performance since the COVID-19 pandemic and ask how changes in federal trade, immigration, civilian employment, and spending policy may impact Hampton Roads. The region’s economy grew in 2024 and will likely grow for a fifth consecutive year in 2025. Whether the good news will last in an era of increasing deficits and debt remains an open question.

We break with tradition in this year’s report with two named chapters. Over the first 25 years of the report, the only named contributor has been the editor. A policy of non-attribution has provided authors space to explore complex and, sometimes, controversial topics. This year, Dr. James V. Koch, the founding Director of the Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy, provides a retrospective of the first quarter-century of the report. A second chapter, led by Mr. Drew Lumpkin of the Hampton Roads Executive Roundtable, explores progress in regional collaboration, a topic we have long championed in previous reports.

Since its inception in 1999, the State of the Region: Hampton Roads report has sought to inform without minimizing the challenges facing the region or downplaying the opportunities that could spur economic growth. We opine that now is the time to increase efforts to diversify the region’s economic base to bolster private sector growth over the remainder of the decade.

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