New 2007 Rural America at a Glance
The Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture has just published its latest report that can be accessed at http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB31/. For those interested in overall conditions in rural areas and in trends this is an excellent resource. You can sign up for e-mail notifications.
Two findings particularly interested me. First, according to their map, it appeared that some of the population loss in non-metro farmbelt areas has appeared to have reversed. For example, the southeast corner of Montana where our field of Ridgway, Montana is located appears to have gained some population. Another interesting finding is the increasing number of ethanol plants in declining non-metro counties. This means the return of jobs to areas that have experienced severe declines in employment.
I am frustrated by the continuing use of Nonmetro and Metro county designations. I understand the debate, but feel that the county level is too imprecise, especially in the west. For example, the county where we served as Village Missionaries for eleven years, Larimer County, is classified as a Metro county because of the population centers of Ft. Collins and Loveland. Yet, Red Feather Lakes, where we served, was 50 miles from Ft. Collins and surrounded by National Forest. Main Street was a gravel road and we had to travel to Ft. Collins for banking, doctors, groceries, Junior High, and High School. Many times we would drive those 50 miles for our son’s baseball practice or, of course, for hospital visits. The only sound we heard at night were the owls (I used to try to hoot back at them–I could do that because we were pretty far away from neighbors) and coyotes. We were rural and most of those 50 miles to Ft. Collins was rural but we still lived in a Metro County. I think researchers should devise a way to distinguish between Metro and Nonmetro by zip code.
Anyway, check out the report!
