Thursday, April 04, 2019

Ag Secretary Perdue calls for uniform definition of 'rural'

Most longtime readers of The Rural Blog realize that researchers studying rural America must generally take pains to define what, precisely, they consider rural. The U.S. Census Bureau, for example, defines it by what it isn't: anything that isn't metropolitan is rural. But different federal agencies define rural in different ways, which leads to confusion as communities qualify for some rural programs but not others.

"As larger socioeconomic forces have shaped demographic changes in rural communities and spurred population shifts, some experts and policymakers — Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue among them — have called for an updated calculation that takes more factors into account beyond population size," Liz Crampton reports for Politico.

Many federal programs for rural communities require a population under 10,000, but others require a population under 20,000. A metropolitan designation requires a city of 50,000. Some growing communities can qualify for programs via grandfather clauses. And some federal officials can take into account whether an area is "rural in character" when determining whether a community qualifies, Crampton reports.

Perdue pushed for a comprehensive definition of rural to be included in the 2018 Farm Bill. While the bill didn't include that measure, "It did increase the population limit for eligibility for water, community facilities and broadband programs to 50,000 people. A USDA spokesperson said the department is working on implementing those provisions," Crampton reports.

Changing the qualifications for programs would cause major disruption to non-profits and other organizations that facilitate rural development programs, warned Tom Collishaw, president and CEO of housing non-profit Self-Help Enterprises. "We’ve built our business models around this, and our delivery systems around this and we’ve built economies of scale," Collishaw said. "We’ve figured out how to do this."

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