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Tuesday, April 03, 2012

Almost 30 percent of Americans live in rural areas or non-metropolitan towns, census analysis shows

The 2010 census found that the rural share of U.S. population had dropped to 16 percent from 21 percent in 2000, but the figure is much larger when populations of cities under 50,000, the minimum size for a metropolitan area, are counted.

Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder did that, and found that 28.8 percent of Americans live in rural areas or small cities, and that most states are "well above average when it comes to the size of their rural populations." In 34 states, more than 28.8 percent of people live in rural areas or non-metropolitan towns, and in 15 states such places account for more than half the population. By this measure, the most rural state is Vermont, with 82.6 percent of its population living in rural areas or small cities.The size of rural population, as the Yonder defines it, has been growing but not at the same pace as urban areas, Bishop reports. The ten states with the highest percentage of people living in rural areas or small cities are Vermont, Wyoming, Maine, Montana, Mississippi, South Dakota, West Virginia, Arkansas, North Dakota and Kentucky. (Read more)

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