Rural U.S. disappearing: Population share hits low

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rural America now accounts for just 16 percent of the nation's population, the lowest ever.

The latest 2010 census numbers hint at an emerging America where, by midcentury, city boundaries become indistinct and rural areas grow ever less relevant. Many communities could shrink to virtual ghost towns as they shutter businesses and close down schools, demographers say.

More metro areas are booming into sprawling megalopolises. Barring fresh investment that could bring jobs, however, large swaths of the Great Plains and Appalachia, along with parts of Arkansas, Mississippi and North Texas, could face significant population declines.

These places posted some of the biggest losses over the past decade as young adults left and the people who stayed got older, moving past childbearing years.

For instance in West Virginia, now with a median age of 41.3, the share of Americans 65 and older is now nearly double that of young adults 18-24 — 16 percent compared to 9 percent, according to census figures released Thursday. In 1970, the shares of the two groups were roughly equal at 12 percent.

"This place ain't dead yet, but it's got about half a foot in the grave," said Bob Frees, 61, of Moundsville, W.Va., which now has a population of just over 9,000. "The big-money jobs are all gone. We used to have the big mills and the rolling plants and stuff like that, and you could walk out of high school when you were 16 or 17 and get a $15-an-hour job."

Demographers put it a bit more formally.

"Some of the most isolated rural areas face a major uphill battle, with a broad area of the country emptying out," said Mark Mather, associate vice president of the Population Reference Bureau, a research group in Washington, D.C. "Many rural areas can't attract workers because there aren't any jobs, and businesses won't relocate there because there aren't enough qualified workers. So they are caught in a downward spiral."

Rural towns are scrambling to attract new residents and stave off heavy funding cuts from financially strapped federal and state governments.

Delta Air Lines recently announced it would end flight service to 24 small airports, several of them in the Great Plains, and the U.S. Postal Service is mulling plans to close thousands of branches in mostly rural areas of the country. The University of Kansas this month opened a new medical school with a class of eight in Salina, a regional hub of nearly 50,000 people, in hopes of supporting nearby rural communities that have no doctors at all.

In North Dakota, colleges are seeking to draw in young adults by charging low tuition and fees. It's part of a broader trend in which many slow-growing rural states are touting recreational scenic landscapes or extending tuition breaks to out-of-state residents who typically are charged more.

Many rural areas, the Great Plains in particular, have been steadily losing population since the 1930s with few signs of the trend slowing in coming decades, according to census figures.

The share of people in rural areas over the past decade fell to 16 percent, passing the previous low of 20 percent in 2000. The rural share is expected to drop further as the U.S. population balloons from 309 million to 400 million by midcentury, leading people to crowd cities and suburbs and fill in the open spaces around them.

In 1910, the population share of rural America was 72 percent. Such areas remained home to a majority of Americans until 1950, amid post-World War II economic expansion and the baby boom.

Among the struggling rural areas are vast stretches of West Virginia in Appalachia. Several of the state's counties over the past decade have lost large chunks of their population following the collapse of logging and coal-mining industries during the 1960s.

In Moundsville, Frees describes his town, which sits in the northern panhandle along the edge of Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, as appealing in some regards because of its low cost of living and friendly atmosphere in which "people talk to each other." But opportunities are few for the area's young adults other than perhaps the $7 or $8-an-hour jobs at the nearby Wal-Mart store.

"The young kids today are fleeing the area," Frees said. "They get the education and then they leave because there's nothing here for them."

Other rural U.S. counties suffering big declines include Issaquena, Jefferson and Sharkey in Mississippi; Sheridan and Towner in North Dakota; Kiowa in Kansas; Cimarron in Oklahoma; Tensas Parish in Louisiana; Monroe in Arkansas and Cottle, King and Culberson in Texas. All had percentage losses of 20 percent or more over the past decade.

The numbers are based partly on an analysis by the Population Reference Bureau. The data were supplemented with calculations by Robert Lang, a sociology professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. "Rural" is generally defined as nonmetropolitan areas with fewer than 50,000 people.

While rural America shrinks, larger U.S. metro areas have enjoyed double-digit percentage gains in population over the past several decades. Since 2000, metros grew overall by 11 percent with the biggest gains in suburbs or small- or medium-sized cities. In fact, of the 10 fastest-growing places, all were small cities incorporated into the suburbs of expanding metro areas, mostly in California, Arizona and Texas.

In all, the share of Americans living in suburbs has climbed to an all-time high of 51 percent. Despite sharp declines in big cities in the Northeast and Midwest since 2000 due to the recession, U.S. cities increased their share by 3 percentage points to 33 percent.

"These new patterns suggest that there will be a blurring of boundaries as regions expand well beyond official government-defined definitions," Frey said. "People like to 'have it all' — affordable housing in a smaller-town setting but in close proximity to jobs and big-city amenities such as specialized shopping, cultural events and major sports and entertainment venues."

"Many moderate-sized metro areas can fulfill all of these needs," he said.

The Census Bureau will soon begin to define new "combined statistical areas" — often referred to by demographers as megapolitan areas or megalopolises — based on growth and overlapping commuter traffic. Some analysts point to a merger of areas between Austin and San Antonio, between Tampa and Orlando and possibly between Phoenix and Tucson, with the Washington-Baltimore region extending southward to Richmond, Va.

These new megalopolises could help spur corporate and government investment in major cities and the growing small towns in between.

"There's such a large share of population that is now in reach of a substantial metropolitan center due to transit systems and highways, that the traditional notion of small-town America is changing," said Lang, who has done extensive research on U.S. megapolitan and regional growth.

"Fewer and fewer people live in the deeply rural places, and for most people in smaller towns, a big regional hospital or a Wal-Mart or strip mall is not too far away," he said.

He and other demographers believe that rural areas will remain viable, although many will be swallowed up by booming metropolitan areas and linked into sprawling megalopolises. Far-flung rural counties boasting vacation and outdoor recreation also will continue as popular destination points for young couples, retirees and empty nesters.

Lang said he hoped the growing convergence of major metro areas — and smaller towns in between — will promote better regional planning and cooperation rather than leading to individual cities acting as rivals for new investment. He said such collaboration might mean development of more roads or regional high-speed rail, or new approaches to water and energy conservation in the Mountain West.

[Libertador]

For someone who has dreams of living Thoreau-style out in the wilderness someday this isn't the worst thing in the world.

Actually, yeah. People concentrated in the cities would allow for large chunks of land to be reclaimed by nature.

[#FF0000]

Actually, yeah. People concentrated in the cities would allow for large chunks of land to be reclaimed by nature.

Until you stop and think about the hell these sprawling megalopolii would wreak on the environment, without even talking about the effect it'll have on people.

I was talking to Zeus The Moose about this the other day. I think it's weird that, in a way, people are becoming more geographically grouped up, while at the same time, so distant -- both physically and socially. I've lived in the same neighborhood for about 16 years, and I hardly know any of my neighbors. I never talk to them. They're total strangers to me. Meanwhile, the friends I do have, all live at least 20 minutes away -- walking distance if not for the fact that it's all connected by (pretty minor) highways.

Anyway, William Gibson's looking a lot more like a prophet nowadays.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I was talking to Zeus The Moose about this the other day. I think it's weird that, in a way, people are becoming more geographically grouped up, while at the same time, so distant -- both physically and socially. I've lived in the same neighborhood for about 16 years, and I hardly know any of my neighbors. I never talk to them. They're total strangers to me. Meanwhile, the friends I do have, all live at least 20 minutes away -- walking distance if not for the fact that it's all connected by (pretty minor) highways.

"The tragedy of our society is not just that the usual forms of behaviour and the principles regulating this behaviour are breaking down, but that a spontaneous wave of new attempts at living is developing from within the social fabric, giving man hopes and ideals that cannot yet be realised. We are people living in the world of property relationships, a world of sharp class contradictions and of an individualistic morality. We still live and think under the heavy hand of an unavoidable loneliness of spirit. Man experiences this 'loneliness' even in towns full of shouting, noise and people, even in a crowd of close friends and work-mates...." - Alexandra Kollontai

[Rusty Shackleford]

and to think, people still want to fight guerrilla wars in the mountains in the US

[danyboy27]

Due to the lack of good pay and financial support, farming communities in north america are regressing at an alarming level.

If no action are taken in the near future, we could starve or pay our food an extremely outrageous price beccause we would be solely dependent on the importation of food.

this is bad, verry bad.

[AnonymousOne]

Due to the lack of good pay and financial support, farming communities in north america are regressing at an alarming level.

If no action are taken in the near future, we could starve or pay our food an extremely outrageous price beccause we would be solely dependent on the importation of food.

this is bad, verry bad.

Not true. Most food in the U.S is produced by large factory style farms, it's not thousands of little farmers, but a couple hundred incredibly large ones.

Farming Communities are dead and dying because they're losing their land to large corporate farms. We should be more concerned with how the farmers and farming community members deal with the loss of livelihood (hard to get a job when your skills are useless).

[Ingraham Effingham]

Food independence is true independence.

I'm telling you, develop your green thumb now before the facist noose tightens around the food supply.

Food is a weapon to them. Planned shortages and chemical engineering are already used, and will only be worse when S hits the F.

[Os Cangaceiros]

We should be more concerned with how the farmers and farming community members deal with the loss of livelihood

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...0_bank18m.html

[Os Cangaceiros]

The American countryside is still plagued with a lot of destructive feudal elements. We need to transform it all into one giant industrial wasteland, only then can true communism take root. For protracted people's war, from the Rockies to the Ozarks!

[bcbm]

The American countryside is still plagued with a lot of destructive feudal elements. We need to transform it all into one giant industrial wasteland, only then can true communism take root. For protracted people's war, from the Rockies to the Ozarks!

i know youre being sarcastic but i think it is actually pretty sad. we are seeing in the rural parts of the united states a very similar situation to what is happening in many third world countries where opportunities no longer exist and people are forced to head for the cities but find very little prospects there, creating a new underclass. i think one of the most important developments in our times that lies outside of traditional marxian analysis is the existence of this class of urban 'workers' without work

[Jose Gracchus]

i know youre being sarcastic but i think it is actually pretty sad. we are seeing in the rural parts of the united states a very similar situation to what is happening in many third world countries where opportunities no longer exist and people are forced to head for the cities but find very little prospects there, creating a new underclass. i think one of the most important developments in our times that lies outside of traditional marxian analysis is the existence of this class of urban 'workers' without work

I totally agree with this. This has been the dominant world dynamic since the late 1970s, everywhere, and it only intensifies with time. The final primitive accumulation, with now most humans living in urban centers, and capital's resolution - if it can be called such a thing - of the conflict between town and countryside. That is, undo both as real social communities, and simply have warehouses for people, for commodities, and farm animals.

[CAleftist]

Sad. There are no job in the rural areas, so people leave. The towns go further into decline, causing more exodus. Rinse, repeat.

Yes, capitalism sure has been wonderful for communities.

[black magick hustla]

“We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well. It’s going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs – over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension"

[Jose Gracchus]

Where's that quote from?

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Where's that quote from?

Gerald_Celente

[black magick hustla]

Where's that quote from?

from a futurist crackpot but i thought the quote was apt

[Jose Gracchus]

lol I'm glad you acknowledged him as a crackpot, I was getting worried about you. Don't want standards around here to decline any further than already

[Die Neue Zeit]

Until you stop and think about the hell these sprawling megalopolii would wreak on the environment, without even talking about the effect it'll have on people.

Weren't there studies that showed that urbanization (not taking into account industrialization programs) results in less pollution precisely because there's a more concentrated and effective sanitation system?

The final primitive accumulation, with now most humans living in urban centers, and capital's resolution - if it can be called such a thing - of the conflict between town and countryside. That is, undo both as real social communities, and simply have warehouses for people, for commodities, and farm animals.

I agree with the sentiment, but real social communities and environmental restoration can only occur now by means of shifting agricultural production from rural areas to urban ones (by means of vertical farming) so that, instead of "abolition of the distinction between town and country" or whatever, there are large and small arcological communities surrounding by more of the natural environment.

[bcbm]

Weren't there studies that showed that urbanization (not taking into account industrialization programs) results in less pollution precisely because there's a more concentrated and effective sanitation system?

that really depends on where said urbanization is taking place