A team at McKinsey & Company explored this question earlier this year–there are many different “right” answers to who is rural. They pick up on the USDA ERS Rural-Urban Continuum codes and use this lens to look more closely at common characteristics of rural counties across the US.
What did they find?
- Rural areas reach across all 50 states covering over 70% of US territory.
- Rural areas are becoming more racially diverse.
- Rural counties tend to have fewer college graduates, yet most have shown growth in GDP and median household income over the past decade.
- Employment is varied (explored more in their latest report)
- Rural areas face more infrastructure challenges, especially broadband.
- Inconsistent federal policy is even more of a challenge in rural communities with limited implementation capacity.
In other words, the experts found what most of us in the field knew all along. They just do a really good job writing it up, and making some cool maps and graphics. I really like their maps.
Read the McKinsey report here: https://lnkd.in/gNkaktWY
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