Chapter (The Rural Landscape)of our textbook(Rural Communities and Legacy) and the handout "Wisconsin Land & Life prompted me to learn more about the exodus of those living in metropolitan areas and the influx of them to this and other areas of the United States. A great source of information is a web site called Americandemograghics(no space); I have used this site to gather statistical information for work related projects and for class work in the past. .
Rural areas are enjoying widespread population gains in the 1990s. This .
surprising reversal is based on several new trends. Lower fertility combined .
with heavy migration from cities is creating thriving rural counties with few .
children. Farm jobs remain scarce; today, rural growth depends on commuters, .
retirees, vacationers, and manufacturers. The result could be a long-term return .
to the country.
The revival of growth in rural America is one of the biggest demographic stories .
of the 1990s. Three in four non-metropolitan counties gained population between .
1990 and 1994, a stunning reversal following a decade of rural decline. Now the .
pace of rural growth seems to be accelerating, and the implications for business .
are substantial.
More than three-fourths of Americans live in the nation's 837 metropolitan .
counties, but 81 percent of the nation's land area is in its 2,304 .
non-metropolitan counties. For most of this century, net migration from non-metro .
to metro areas has been a constant demographic trend. During the 1980s, for .
example, non-metropolitan counties--those without an urban hub--grew by only 1.3 .
million people, for an average annual growth rate of 0.3 percent. Meanwhile, .
metropolitan counties gained 21 million people, with an average annual growth .
rate of 1.1 percent. .
Now the pattern is changing. Non-metro counties gained 880,000 residents between April 1990 and July 1992. And the latest estimates from the Census Bureau show that the new trend is getting stronger, as non-metro counties gained about 1.