Everyone keeps saying that rural America is in decline; that small towns and the countryside cannot keep up with the variety of opportunities available in larger cities.
There is certainly some truth to that. But an analysis on The Washington Post website notes that the counties defined as rural by the federal government have decreased noticeably over the decades, and a lot of these formerly rural counties that are now counted as part of a metropolitan area are thriving.
“The contest between rural and urban America is rigged,” the Post reported. “Official definitions are regularly updated in such a way that rural counties are continually losing their most successful places to urbanization.
When a rural county grows, it transmutes into an urban one.
“Imagine how unfair a sport would seem if one team automatically drafted the other’s best players the moment they showed any promise. That’s essentially what happens when we measure rural areas as whatever’s left over after anywhere that hits a certain population level is considered metropolitan.”
The reason metropolitan areas are growing is because of a steadily increasing population that is spreading out further from its city base. In fact, if you use the counties defined in the 1950s as rural and urban, their populations are virtually equal today: 1950s rural counties have 159 million people while urban counties from that decade have 162 million.
One notable point is that counties with newer urban classifications have more in common with rural people. Another point, made by a Cornell University researcher, is that after five or six decades of removing the rural counties whose populations have grown, you’re left with a lot of distant and disadvantaged rural counties.
If all this sounds discouraging to residents of small towns and rural areas, there is hope.
The Post interviewed plenty of researchers who object to the idea that rural America is in perpetual decline. A University of Minnesota Extension specialist has shown that people in their 30s and older are starting to move back to rural areas — probably for the slower pace and the neighborly attitudes that still prevail in locations with smaller populations.
It’s unrealistic to expect every rural county to thrive, especially if the migratory trend of the best and the brightest from small towns to larger cities continues. But if the American population keeps growing, and if the economy continues to create jobs, a certain number of these jobs are going to locate in areas where there’s less competition for workers — which is one way to define small towns and rural counties.
The main challenge is to develop a trained work force that can handle the jobs of the future. Do that, and rural America will be just fine.
