A recent article by Economist Jason Henderson and Stephan Weiler from the Center for the Study of Rural America at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City explains new data that supports OMB?s new rural classification. What follows is excerpts taken from the article entitled, Defining ?Rural? America.
Following the 2000 Census, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) decided to split the previous homogeneous term ?nonmetropolitan counties? into two categories creating a new ?micropolitan? designation to help sharpen the definition of rural.
The two categories are: counties based on a small core city and those based on yet smaller towns.
As the name suggests, the micropolitan classification is still based on a city. Micropolitan areas feature a core city or cities with a population of 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants (versus the metro cities of 50,000 or more).
The micropolitan area itself includes a central county that contains the core city or cities, along with any counties that have substantial commuting flows to or from the central county. The newly designated 674 micropolitan counties are home to10 percent of the nation?s population.
The remaining 1,378 nonmetro counties that are too small to be classified as micropolitan are classified nonmetro noncore by OMB. These counties with towns of less than 10,000 inhabitants are also called ?town counties.?
The new classification system became necessary because many rural counties with small cities perform a widening variety of functions for their rural neighbors.
Better roads and cars have let people in outlying counties work and shop in micropolitan areas. Furthermore, the new classification system invites analysts to reconsider a variety of rural myths. Traditional misconceptions, such as those regarding employment and population, can handicap rural areas as they seek new paths to economic growth.
Nonmetro areas in general and micropolitan areas in particular have in fact been remarkably vibrant.
Rural labor markets recovered more quickly in the two recent ?jobless recoveries? of 1991 and 2001.
In March 1993, two years after the end of the 1991 recession, nonmetro job levels had risen 2% compared to 1.2% in metro areas. Using the latest available data from March 2002 through March 2004, nonmetro employment growth was again slightly higher than metro employment growth.
The finer detail afforded by the micropolitan classification suggests that these regions were, in fact, the principal drivers of rural job growth.
In the first two years of the current recovery, micropolitan counties have paced national employment growth, rising 1.85%, compared to 1.69% in metro counties and 1.53% in town counties.
In the past, many rural analysts have chosen to overcome the limitation of the Census Bureau?s rural definition by simply ignoring it and defining ?rural? according to a county?s metropolitan status.
This new understanding can provide a clearer perspective for both private and public decision-makers and help regions better assess their economic opportunities.
In addition, this new tool should help shed a brighter light on what is actually happening in rural America.
Details: The information obtained in this article was based on a report from July issue of The Main Street Economist. If you would like to obtain a copy of the report entitled, ?Defining Rural America? please visit the Center for the Study of Rural America at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City website at www.kc.frb.org. For more information about the Linking Rural Communities to Communication Opportunities and best practices that you would like to share, contact LaStar Matthews, Staff Associate at 202-626-3177, or email matthews@nlc.org.