Rural America is the New "Inner City" (metro, suburban, crime)

[SportyandMisty]

Federal and data show that beginning in 2013, in the majority of sparsely populated U.S. counties, more people died than were born -- the first time that's happened since the dawn of universal birth registration in the 1930s.

Starting in the 1980s, the nation's basket cases were its urban areas -- where a toxic stew of crime, drugs and suburban flight conspired to make large cities the slowest-growing and most troubled places.

Today, however, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows that by many key measures of socioeconomic well-being, those charts have flipped. In terms of poverty, college attainment, teenage births, divorce, death rates from heart disease and cancer, reliance on federal disability insurance and male labor-force participation, rural counties now rank the worst among the four major U.S. population groupings (the others are big cities, suburbs and medium or small metro areas).

Rural America Is the New 'Inner City'

http://www.wsj.com/articles/rural-am...ity-1495817008

[Katarina Witt]

^^I don't know where they're getting that breakdown, as the census bureau doesn't track suburbs separately. Their divisions are urban and rural.

[maus]

Since there is a paywall to read this article, I cannot comment on the specific details. This FOX Business article provides a few more details about the WSJ article.

More often than not, I see rural towns on the decline for many reasons. People move for jobs and the job growth is not in rural, isolated areas of the country. Generally speaking, job growth occurs in larger metros across the country. Manufacturing jobs have been leaving the U.S. for decades, which has caused further decline of many rural areas. Many of these small towns may have only 1 major employer and once that big company is gone, rarely does something else come in and take its place.

I don't see a turn around for many rural areas anytime soon, if there is no clear way to create jobs in sparsely populated areas. There is no one simple answer to solving such a problem of American rural decline.