WHAT IS RURAL AMERICA? Several attempts have categorize rural America. been made over the years to define and Because none of the resulting definitions satisfied the specific requirements for this review, we developed a working definition of "rural" in consultation with Representative Coleman's office. This section describes rural America in terms of that definition; discusses some of the information we used to develop the definition; and presents the application of the definition, in a series of maps, to the United States, to a specific state, and to a congressional district. Counties With an Urban •Comprise 67% of U.S. Counties, •Contain About 16% of U.S. •Lag Rest of U.S. in Income, We defined rural counties as those counties with urban populations of less than 20,000, as listed in the 1980 Census of Population and Census updates. Of the 3,096 counties in the United States, 2,097 (about two-thirds) are rural counties under this definition. About 16 percent of the U.S. population lives in rural counties. Much has been written about the conditions in rural America. While various observers may present somewhat differing views and may have different definitions of rural, it is generally agreed that rural areas lag nonrural areas in such measures as income, 1 jobs, and education. For example, in a 1987 report, ERS, which uses "metropolitan" and "nonmetropolitan" to differentiate between urban and rural areas, commented as follows: "In the 1980's, downturns in several industries important 1Rural Economic Development in the 1980's: A Summary, ERS, USDA, Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 533 (Oct. 1987). decline of national proportions. 13 percent. . . . Between 1985 and 1986, 632,000 people outmovement than the annual average of either the 1950's Many observers also note the diversity of rural areas in terms of their economic and social conditions and point out that such diversity must be taken into account in formulating government policies and programs. 2 For example, in a 1985 report, ERS identified seven distinct types of nonmetropolitan, or rural, counties according to their major economic base, presence of federally owned land, or population characteristics. Although some counties did not fit into any of these categories and others fit into more than one category, the seven types were (1) counties heavily dependent on farming, (2) counties heavily dependent on manufacturing, (3) mining-dependent counties with economies based mainly on nonrenewable natural resources, (4) counties with high concentrations of government activities, (5) persistent poverty counties, (6) federal lands counties, and (7) counties characterized as retirement settlements. report: According to this ERS "Rural policies based on an aggregate analysis of rural 2 Lloyd D. Bender et al., The Diverse Social and Economic Structure of Nonmetropolitan America, Agriculture and Rural Economics Division, ERS, USDA, Rural Development Research Report No. 49 (Sept. 1985). Use Population Codes to Illustrate Using Maps of Our approach to addressing the question "What Is Rural America?" was to (1) use population codes to differentiate between rural and nonrural counties and (2) illustrate the application of these codes using maps of the United States, Missouri, and a congressional district in Missouri. Beale codes, which ERS developed and uses, depict population concentrations for all counties in the United States. (See table 2.1.) ERS uses the Census definition of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties and reports most of its data on this basis. Metropolitan counties are represented by Beale codes 0 through 3 and nonmetropolitan counties by Beale codes 4 through 9. For our review, we chose to define as "rural" those counties in Beale codes 6 through 9 and as "nonrural" those counties in codes 0 through 5. Using this definition, which we selected in consultation with Representative Coleman's office, "rural" represents all U.S. counties with urban populations of less than 20,000. Beale code Definition Nonrural counties Central counties of metropolitan areas of 1 million Fringe counties of metropolitan areas of 1 million Counties in metropolitan areas of 250,000 to 1 million 3 Counties in metropolitan areas of less than 250,000 4 5 6 7 8 9 Note: Urban population of 20,000 or more, adjacent to a Urban population of 20,000 or more, not adjacent to a Rural counties Urban population of less than 20,000, adjacent to a Urban population of less than 20,000, not adjacent to a Completely rural, adjacent to a metropolitan area Metropolitan status is that announced by the Office of Management and Budget in June 1983, when the current population criteria were first applied to results of the 1980 Census. Adjacency was determined by physical boundary adjacency and a finding that at least 2 percent of the employed labor force in the nonmetropolitan county commuted to metropolitan central counties. Source: ERS, USDA. Table 2.2 shows the number of counties in, and the 1984 population figure for, each of the Beale codes. (App. I shows the Beale code for each county in the United States.) |