To understand recent 2020 presidential elections
United States: demographic
and economic trends in urban, suburban and rural communities
Three key demographic forces have reshaped the overall
U.S. population in recent years: growing racial and ethnic diversity,
increasing immigration and rising numbers of older adults. But these trends are
playing out differently in the nation’s rural, urban and suburban communities,
touching some more than others.
Likewise,
recent U.S. population growth also has been uneven. Urban counties have grown
at roughly the overall national rate of 13% since 2000. Suburban and small
metropolitan areas have grown more briskly. Rural counties have lagged, and
half of them have fewer residents now than they did in 2000.
According to a Pew Research Center analysis of census
data, since 2000, U.S. urban and suburban populations have grown at least as
much as they did over the prior decade. But the total rural population has
grown less than it did in the 1990s, when rising numbers fed hope of a modest “rural rebound.” As a result, a somewhat smaller share of Americans now live in rural
counties (14% vs. 16% in 2000).
More recently, the Census Bureau’s population
estimates for 2017 show a one-year uptick in the nation’s rural population,
though not enough to make up for previous declines. Analysis by demographer
Kenneth M. Johnson attributed the increase to gains in rural communities on the edge of
metropolitan areas, while more remote
counties continued to lose population.
What is an urban, suburban or rural county?
The
flow of people in and out of different types of U.S. counties is affecting
their size and composition. Since 2000, more people left rural counties for
urban, suburban or small metro counties than moved in from those areas. Because
there were not enough new immigrants to offset those departures, rural counties
as a group grew only because they had more births than deaths.
At the national level, non-Hispanic whites make up the
majority of the population, but a key demographic shift is underway: Whites are
a shrinking share of the population and expected to be less than half by midcentury as other groups grow more rapidly. Whites have become a minority
of the population in most urban counties since 2000, while remaining the
majority in 90% of suburban and small metro counties and 89% of rural ones.
Another key demographic trend, the rise in immigration
in recent decades, has raised the foreign-born share of the U.S. population
overall and has increased the share in each type of county, although to varying
degrees. Immigrants, along with their children and grandchildren, have accounted for the majority of U.S. population growth since 1965. But immigrants are more concentrated in cities and
suburbs than in rural areas. On the flip side, the majority of rural counties
now have fewer U.S.-born residents than in 2000, a key factor in their
dwindling populations.
A third major population driver – the aging of the giant Baby Boom
generation – also has varying impacts on different county types. Rural areas
have a higher share of adults who are ages 65 and older than urban or suburban
counties. But suburban counties have experienced the sharpest increases in the
number of older adults since 2000.
The analysis in this chapter relies mainly on Census
Bureau data. Current numbers for county characteristics come from the American
Community Survey (ACS) combined data for 2012-2016, the latest available. Current
numbers for natural increase/decrease and migration flows come from population
estimates for 2014, the most comparable year to the ACS data because it is the
midpoint of the combined ACS data used in this chapter. See Methodology for
more detail.
Suburbs growing more rapidly than rural or urban areas
About 46 million Americans live in the nation’s rural
counties, 175 million in its suburbs and small metros and about 98 million in
its urban core counties.
As a group, the population in rural counties grew 3%
since 2000, less than their 8% growth in the 1990s. Urban county population
rose 13% since 2000 and the population in suburban and small metro counties
went up 16%, growth rates somewhat higher than in the 1990s.2 The share of U.S. residents who live in rural counties declined in
the 1990s and since 2000, but rose in suburban counties during both periods and
held steady in urban counties.
Although
the rural population as a whole has grown since 2000, the majority of
populations in individual rural counties have not. Since the turn of the
century, the population declined in 52% of rural counties – 1,024 of 1,969. Among
the hardest hit counties were those where the economy is based on farming,
about a fifth of rural counties.
Growth factors vary for cities,
suburbs and rural areas
There
are four main drivers of population gain or loss at the county level: births,
deaths, new immigrants coming from abroad or leaving, and people moving to or
from other U.S. counties (including immigrants already living in the U.S.). The
census numbers show that these factors are affecting cities, suburbs and rural
communities differently.
Urban
areas gained 1.6 million net new migrants since 2000, with a surplus of
immigrants more than offsetting a loss of people who moved out to suburbs or
rural areas. As a group, urban counties had 9.8 million more births than
deaths, further bolstering their populations.
Suburban
and small metro counties have grown since 2000 because of gains in all the
drivers of population change. They gained 11.7 million new residents by drawing
former residents of U.S. urban and rural areas, as well as immigrants from
abroad. On top of that, they had 12.1 million more births than deaths.
It
was a different picture for rural counties, however, where move-outs since 2000
exceeded move-ins. As a group, they had a net loss of 380,000 people who moved
out. The loss would have been larger – more than 950,000 people – had it not
been partly offset by about 600,000 new immigrants. The total population of
rural counties grew only through natural increase – that is, they had 1.2
million more births than deaths.
Rural population loss largest in
Midwest
Patterns of births, deaths, migration and immigration vary greatly among
regions, and generally illustrate the long-term trend of Americans favoring the
Sunbelt states of the South and West over Northeastern or Midwestern states. These
regional differences persist within each county type.
Among
rural counties, a majority in the Northeast and Midwest lost population since
2000, while a majority in the South and especially the West gained population. One
factor behind the regional difference is that rural counties in the Northeast
and Midwest were more likely than other rural areas to have more deaths than
births. These counties also were more likely to have experienced a net loss of
migrants – more people moving out than moving in.
The population trends of rural counties are linked to
their economic profiles.3 As a group, the nation’s 391 rural farming counties – heavily concentrated in the Great Plains – have lost total population since 2000, while rural counties with
other types of economies gained population.
The total population of rural counties with recreation-based and
government-based economies grew more since 2000 than the populations of other
rural county types. One reason recreation-based counties grew was that they had
a net gain of new residents who moved from other U.S counties, the only rural
county type to have a gain in net domestic migration. An analysis by the Population Reference
Bureau found that rural recreation-based
counties were especially likely to have growing numbers of residents 65 and
older, while rural farming-based counties were losing residents in that age
group.
Among
urban areas, the Midwest had the largest share of population-losing counties
since 2000: 42% of urban counties in this region, including the ones that
encompass Chicago (Cook County, Illinois), Detroit (Wayne County, Michigan),
and Cleveland (Cuyahoga County, Ohio), lost population.
Among
suburban and small metro counties, about a quarter of the ones in the Northeast
and Midwest lost population since 2000, a higher share than in other regions. A
majority of Northeast and Midwest suburban counties had a net gain of migrants,
but that was mainly due to immigration. A majority had a net loss of residents
to urban or rural U.S. counties during this period.
Older adults are a higher share of the population in rural areas than in
urban and suburban counties
A key demographic trend shaping the makeup of local populations, as well
as the nation as a whole, is the rising number of older Americans. The Baby
Boom generation, born between 1946 and 1964, began turning 65 in 2011, and all
will have reached that age by 2030.
While
the population is aging in all three county types, this is happening more
rapidly in U.S. suburban and small metro counties. The 65-and-older population
grew 39% in the suburbs since 2000, compared with 26% in urban and 22% in rural
counties.
Nationally
and in each county type, the older adult population grew more sharply since
2000 than any other age group – young children, school-age children, young
adults or middle-aged adults. In rural areas, the population younger than 18
declined during this period. As a result, in each county type, adults ages 65
and older now make up a larger share of the total population than in 2000.
As
a group, rural counties skew older than suburban and urban counties: 18% of
rural residents are 65 or older vs. 15% in suburban and small metro counties
and 13% in cities.
Rural
counties also have a smaller share of young adults than urban or suburban
populations.
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