Photo by Flickr user tlindenbaum.
Rural areas are going the way of the dodo, if you believe yesterday's Associated Press story about "the decline of small-town America." The article begins with a stark statistic from the 2010 Census:
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.
Should we all just give up and move to Brooklyn?
Not so fast, writes the the Daily Yonder, a rural affairs blog that took issue with the AP's doleful take of the future of the non-urban. Instead of declaring rural American DOA, the Yonder wrote yesterday, why don't we recognize that rural people still make up an enormous portion of the county?
[W]hile 16% of the population (rural's share now) is lower than the 20% in 2000, it is still a sizable number. Rural's proportion of the total population is about the same as that of Hispanics and is more than for African-Americans. Is anybody saying African Americans are about to become "virtually extinct"?
The Yonder points out that the source for the AP's story, a July report by the Population Reference Bureau, actually states that the population of rural America is still rising -- just not as fast as the explosive population growth in metropolitan areas.
Still, that doesn't keep people living in small towns from being fatalistic. From the AP's story:
“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.["]
