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Understanding Rural America

Introduction


The well-being of America's rural people and places depends upon many things--the availability of good-paying jobs; access to critical services such as education, health care, and communication; strong communities; and a healthy natural environment to name a few. And while urban America is equally dependent upon these things, the challenges to well-being look very different in rural areas than in urban. Small-scale, low-density settlement patterns make it more costly for communities and businesses to provide critical services. Declining jobs and income in the natural resource-based industries that many rural areas depend on force workers in those industries to find new ways to make a living. Often those new ways are found only in the city. Low-skill, low-wage rural manufacturing industries must find new ways to challenge the increasing number of foreign competitors. Distance and remoteness impede many rural areas from being connected to the urban centers of economic activity. Finally, changes in the availability and use of natural resources located in rural areas affect the people who earn a living from those resources, as well as those who derive recreational and other benefits from them.

Some rural areas have met these challenges successfully, achieved some level of prosperity, and are ready for the challenges of the future. Other rural areas have met these challenges, but have little capacity to adapt further. Still other rural areas have neither met the current challenges nor positioned themselves for the future. Thus, concern for rural America, its conditions and its future, is real. And, while rural America is a producer of critical goods and services, the concerns go beyond economics. Rural America is also home to a fifth of the Nation's people, keeper of natural amenities and national treasures, and safeguard of a unique part of American culture, tradition, and history.

Translating concern into effective policy for the betterment of rural America is, however, no easy task. The challenge lies, at least partly, in the complex nature of the subject. Rural America, like the rest of America, is changing. Similarly, rural America, like the rest of America, is diverse. These are simple, if not obvious, facts. Yet, in the course of policy debate and formulation, those simple, obvious facts often get lost. In matters of policy, it is tempting to think of rural America as unchanging and homogeneous, to think of it as it once was or as it is now in only some places.

This report aims to provide objective information about the changes taking place in and the diversity of rural America. Toward that end, the report looks at change and diversity from several angles--its people and places, its economies and industries, its concerns and future. The report begins by examining shifts in rural employment, population, and well-being, continues by analyzing six county types, and concludes by outlining key realities that effective rural policy will need to recognize.

As with all generalizations, even the disaggregated analysis that follows cannot capture every detail and individual difference. Still, it yields useful information for understanding the complexity of rural America's conditions, trends, needs, and prospects.


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