'Counting Vermont:' Documenting The State's Changing Population

VPR News has been poring through the 2010 Census, and a portrait of settlement patterns has emerged.

One ummistakable conclusion is that a lot more people live in Burlington and the necklace of towns around the city. More and more, northwestern Vermont has become the center of the state’s population.

But what does that mean for the rest of the state? We take a look at that and other questions in a documentary, “Counting Vermont,” which airs on Saturday at 4 p.m.

The short answer is that Burlington’s gain is not necessarily a loss for other parts of the state.

Population in some of the state’s other traditional centers has declined in some cases. And in other places population has not kept up with statewide growth. But those communities are still vital, inviting places.

Increasingly, access to broadband computer hookups is allowing towns large and small to hold their own. In “Counting Vermont,” we’ll meet Carmen Tedesco. She lives in Huntington and works for a firm in Washington, D.C. She commutes via her computer.

Experts tell us that such technological advances allow Vermont, and its many small towns, to compete in the 21st century even at a time when our population is growing much more slowly than other parts of the country.

Steve Delaney hosts “Counting Vermont” on Saturday at 4.