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The Rural / Urban Variable

The Rural / Urban Variable . Objectives for these notes describe early work in defining rural describe current meanings of rural describe early work in defining urban describe current meanings of urban Discuss the potential impact of rural and urban life on residents.

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The Rural / Urban Variable

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  1. The Rural / Urban Variable • Objectives for these notes • describe early work in defining rural • describe current meanings of rural • describe early work in defining urban • describe current meanings of urban • Discuss the potential impact of rural and urban life on residents

  2. Exploring the meaning of rural • Rural comes from the Latin rus • means room or open space • rustic also comes from rus • rustic means simple or unrefined • rural community usually means “small town” • rural places are wide-open and big spaces

  3. Exploring the meaning of rural • 1915 Charles Josiah Galpin • The Social Anatomy of an Agricultural Community • Core and the rural hinterland • The “rurban” community • The Rural Life Studies (1941&1993) • El Cerrito, NM Lancaster, PA • Sublette, KS Landaff, NH • Irwin, IA Harmony, GA

  4. Exploring the meaning of rural • Willits and Bealer (1967) • An Evaluation of a Composite Definition of Rurality • Occupational • Socio-cultural • Ecological

  5. Exploring the meaning of rural • Jacob and Luloff (1995) • Exploring the meaning of Rural • Rural as Residual (anything not urban) • Identified rural places • Natural Resource Images • Written words

  6. Current meanings of rural • Non-Metropolitan County (residual) • Frontier County • population density (ecology) • Natural Resource Dependent county (occupation) • farming • mining • forestry • fishing • officially, not a census defined place of 2,500 people or more (residual)

  7. Exploring the meaning of urban • Urban comes from the Latin urbs • means city • urbane also comes from urbs • urbane means sophisticated or of the city • Urban Renewal • urban centers have decayed and there is an effort for redevelopment

  8. Exploring the meaning of urban • Georg Simmel (1903) • Metropolis and Mental Life • Negative views of city life • Wirth (1938) founded Urban Sociology • Urbanism as a Way of Life • Large size • Density • heterogeneity • too deterministic

  9. Exploring the meaning of urban • Claude Fischer (1975) • Subcultural Theory of Urbanism • “critical masses” that foster unconventional behavior (next slide) • Attracts those with special talents and interests • density increases “unconventionality” and pathology but not from crowding

  10. Exploring the meaning of urban • Claude Fischer (1975) • Subcultural Theory of Urbanism • “critical masses” that foster unconventional behavior (next slide) • Attracts those with special talents and interests • density increases “unconventionality” and pathology but not from crowding

  11. Exploring the meaning of urban • Leo Srole (1980) • Mental Health in New York • City life does not produce mental illness • urban mental health is better than rural • social networks • Mark Granovetter (1973) • The Strength of Weak Ties • primary • secondary • acquaintences

  12. Current meanings of urban • Places of 2,500 or more • Urbanized Areas (not confined to MCD boundaries) • Extended City • city and surrounding area of 50,000 • MSA • single incorporated city of 50,000 plus in a urbanized area or 100,000 or more in county

  13. Current Confusion • Tendency to equate rural with our agricultural past • Tendency to equate urban with modern life • Rural still persists in modern society • Urban still capable of rural-like interactions

  14. There are elements within society that have made the maintenance of community difficult... • Improved Transportation • Telecommunications • Sense of community is coming more from interacting with those who share common values or with whom we do similar things, not from those living in the same town.

  15. Two Key Features That Have Distinguished Rural and Urban Areas: • Size • Isolation • But… • The decreased isolation has created a need to move beyond simple urban/rural or metro/nonmetro designations. • New typology utilizes both size and location.

  16. Community as a Geographic Area • Two units of analysis are commonly used in reference to community as a geographic entity: • County • Place • County • Metropolitan/Nonmetropolitan Area • Place • Urban/Rural Locality

  17. Metropolitan Counties • 0 - Central counties of metro areas of 1 million population or more. • 1 - Fringe counties of metro areas of 1 million population or more. • 2 - Counties in metro areas of 250,000 to 1 million population • 3 - Counties in metro areas of fewer than 250,000

  18. Nonmetropolitan Counties • 4 - Urban population of 20,000 or more, adjacent to a metro area. • 5 - Urban population of 20,000 or more, not adjacent to a metro area. • 6 - Urban population of 2,500 to 19,999, adjacent to a metro area. • 7 - Urban population of 2,500 to 19,999, not adjacent to a metro area. • 8 - Completely rural or fewer than 2,500 urban population, adjacent to a metro area. • 9 - Completely rural or fewer than 2,500 urban population, adjacent to a metro area.

  19. Benefits of New Typology • It helps us to better characterize if a county’s population is located in larger cities, or is dispersed in small towns of fewer than 2,500 persons. • It helps us understand the extent to which residents have access to urban services since it considers their location relative to metropolitan areas.

  20. Rural Communities and Change • Rapid Growth • Describes rural communities having growth rates that have exceeded the national average. • These communities face challenges in managing growth and ensuring that rural residents benefit from that growth.

  21. Rural Communities and Change • Population Decline • Applies to counties that lost population over the last decade or more.

  22. Rural Communities and Change • Persistent Poverty • These are counties whose per capita income has placed them in the bottom 20 percent of US nonmetro counties since 1950.

  23. Rural Communities and Change • Rapid Growth ... affects 25% of nonmetro population • Persistent Low Income … touches 41% of nonmetro people • Declining Population … affects 27% of the nonmetro population

  24. Changes in Rural Communities • Automobiles • Better roads have allowed schools to consolidate. • Social institutions less attached to their communities. • As rural communities broaden their economic activity, people’s roles have become very different from one another.

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