A Closer Look at Rural America May Surprise You

Note: This article is from the latest edition of BBA Economic Digest, a weekly online publication for economic developers and business people. Subscribe?here.

There is no magic button, no one-size-fits-all economic development strategy that works in all places. This especially holds true in rural America, as I have learned from experience.

That said, the latest 2020 Census revealed some things that surprised me about rural America, where about 15 percent of the population lives on 70 percent of the nation's landmass.

One finding noteworthy was that?rural counties with recreation-focused economies were far more likely to gain population than those counties where farming makes up the majority of the local economy.

Only 21 percent of rural (nonmetro) counties with farming-dependent economies gained population from 2010 to 2020, according to?an analysis of U.S. Census data by The Daily Yonder, the only national news organization for rural people and places.

Conversely, nearly six out of every 10 rural counties with a recreation-based economy gained population over the last decade.?

By the numbers:?Only 84 of the 391 rural farm-dependent counties gained population from 2010 to 2020. Among the recreation-focused rural counties, 135 of 228 counties gained population.

Over the 10-year span, rural counties with farming economies lost 2.6 percent of their combined population. The combined population of recreation counties grew by 3.5 percent over the same period.

Nationwide, about a third of the nation’s 1,976 rural counties gained population in the last 10 years. But overall, the rural population fell by 0.6 percent, from 46,340,000 to 46,060,000 over the last decade.

Rural America is Not Synonymous with White

Brookings has identified three demographic trends from the 2020 Census that upend outdated assumptions.

1. Rural America has become more racially and ethnically diverse.

Contrary to the dominant narratives that use “rural” as a synonym for “white,” 24 percent of rural Americans were people of color in 2020.

While rural America is still less diverse than the nation as a whole (42.2 percent people of color), it is diversifying?as well. The median rural county saw its population of color increase by 3.5 percentage points between 2010 and 2020.

Diversity in rural America, however, varies considerably from place to place. In 2020, two-thirds of rural counties consisted of at least 10 percent people of color, one-third were over a quarter people of color and 10 percent of rural counties are majority people of color.

2. The distribution of people of color in rural America is highly regionalized.

The makeup of rural populations of color is shaped by highly regionalized variations in the concentration of Black Americans, Latino Americans, and Indigenous Americans across the nation. Rural counties in the South and West are particularly racially and ethnically diverse.

3. Latino populations continue to drive diversity in rural America.

When examining changes in the rural Latino, Black, and Indigenous populations in the U.S. over the last decade, it becomes clear that expanding diversity is largely driven by growth in the rural Latino population.

Bottom line: The future of rural America is increasingly marked by demographic, regional, and economic diversity. In the last decade, rural population growth was driven by people of color (particularly Latinos) and by recreation-focused rural counties.

Dean Barber is the principal of BBA, a Dallas-based advisory firm that finds answers to change lives and create better places. Visit us at barberadvisors.com