Why Some Rural Places Prosper and Others Do Not

Abstract

More than 300 rural counties are more prosperous than the nation. Each has lower unemployment rates, lower poverty rates, lower school dropout rates, and better housing conditions than the nation. Prosperous counties tend to have more educated populations, more diverse economies, more private non-farm jobs, more farmers and government farm payments, more creative class occupations, and more equal income distributions. They have fewer African-American, American Indian, or Hispanic residents and fewer recent immigrants. Some findings support what many rural people believe to be true: civically engaged religious groups and other identities that bind people together can really matter. Other results contradict conventional wisdom. For instance, climate and distances to cities and major airports, are relatively unimportant. Focusing on prosperity, instead of growth or competitiveness, provides new insights into rural conditions and prospects.

What is smart rural development?

“…Since the work of Schuler (1974), Yang and Fujita (1983), and Brueckner et al (1999), there has emerged a growing literature on amenities and their relation to growth and development patterns. There is a large literature that emphasizes the role of amenities as an important factor influencing the growth potential for rural regions, in terms of attracting highly educated individuals, firms, and economic activity in general (McGranahan, 2008;Isserman et al, 2009;Dissart and Marcouiller, 2012).…”

“…However, they found a substantial impact in rural and rural adjacent areas. Hence, these amenity services form important assets for rural and peripheral regions since these tend to be more endowed with natural resources and have less economic variety (Isserman et al, 2009). Similarly, Deller et al (2001) suggest that rural resources should be re-conceptualized as a kind of capital assets for attracting rural tourism.…”

A closer look at the rural-urban health disparities: Insights from four major diseases in the Commonwealth of Virginia

“…Isserman et al, 2009;Irwin et al, 2010). The original Isserman system is a four-pronged geographic classification applied at the ZIP-code level.…”

Defining frontier areas in the United States

“…According to central place theory, the costs associated with providing higher-order services (appliances, motor vehicles, major trauma intervention) are higher than those associated with lower-order services (groceries, sporting goods, nursing care), thus they require a larger population to support them (Mulligan, 1984). Factors other than urban population size affect service availability and well-being in rural areas, including rural population density, industrial structure, and natural amenity features (Isserman, Feser, & Warren, 2009;McGranahan, Wojan, & Lambert, 2010;Vias, Mulligan, & Molin, 2002). However, recent studies confirm that the variability of rural well-being is still very strongly tied to the structure of the urban hierarchy -places near large cities have lower poverty rates, higher incomes, more jobs, higher population growth, and better access to retail services compared with more remote areas (Partridge, Rickman, Ali, & Olfert, 2008a, 2009aPorter & Howell, 2009).…”