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I live in a town of about 5,000 people that has not seen much growth in population in the last 60 years, and most of the houses are still along the main roads that go through the town, not little side developments. Most people that live here work in a small city that is 20 miles away that has a population of around 35,000 people. Most of the people that live here did not move here from the city but where born here. Would you call this town a suburb?
There are places that are definitely suburban and places that are definitely urban. But, for everything in between, I say "this" place is more or less urban than "that" other place.
My rule of thumb says it is a suburb because it is only twenty miles out and one seventh the population. To escape being called a suburb it would have to be 86 miles out. But since the "central city" in this case is less populous than many suburbs of large cities, maybe not.
Whether someone drives a tractor down the main street getting from place to place (parades don't count.) If yes, the town is rural.
I've seen that once here, though not right in the middle of town. Also a bear walking right past my bedroom window and then down the driveway. Next house over is about 10 feet...
I live in a town of about 5,000 people that has not seen much growth in population in the last 60 years, and most of the houses are still along the main roads that go through the town, not little side developments. Most people that live here work in a small city that is 20 miles away that has a population of around 35,000 people. Most of the people that live here did not move here from the city but where born here. Would you call this town a suburb?
It’s a grey line and absolute size has little to do with it. There are two criteria: landscape vs. economic activity.
For example, New York City is surrounded by picturesque, Colonial-era towns with low populations. If you took photographs of these places and displayed them out of context, many people would label them as rural (full of horse farms on quaint country roads, etc.). However, most of the people who live there commute into the city.
If economic activity is predominantly local the community is rural whereas if economic activity involves commuting the community is suburban.
Perhaps not what the OP is looking for, but the census classifies rural based mainly on density an continuous development. Contigous census block groups with a density of 500 / sq mile or more equal an urban cluster or area. The block groups must be connected a region of contigous census block groups with a density of at least 1000 per square mile. Commute doesn't matter. In a sense, this makes a lot of sense. At least in the northeast, on the exurbs of cities you can regions of very low density. They certainly feel rural, however it's mostly houses on huge lots in the woods, where the residents commute to a more populated area.
Urban vs. rural is assigned at the Census Block level. Census blocks are the smallest geographic units that the Census Bureau recognizes in its geographic scheme. All other geographic areas used in census products can be defined as a collection of (usually, but not always, contiguous) census blocks. Any other kind of geographic area -- a city, county, school district, ZIP code, etc. -- will not necessarily be classified as completely urban or rural. For example, Jackson county, Mo is the core county of the Kansas City metropolitan area and would seem to be obviously an "urban county". But according to the 2000 census there were over 26,000 persons (4%) in Jackson county who were living in census blocks classified as rural. Even within the city limits of Kansas City, Mo 1.3% of the population was classified as living in a rural setting. If you look at the breakout based on land area instead of population you find that 43.3% of the land area of the city of Kansas City is classified as rural!
Census 2000 definition (I'll check later if 2010 is different):
For Census 2000, the Census Bureau classifies as "urban" all territory, population, and housing units located within an urbanized area (UA) or an urban cluster (UC). It delineates UA and UC boundaries to encompass densely settled territory, which consists of:
core census block groups or blocks that have a population density of at least 1,000 people per square mile and surrounding census blocks that have an overall density of at least 500 people per square mile
In addition, under certain conditions, less densely settled territory may be part of each UA or UC.
There are two kinds of farmers: with money, and for money. The latter kind is usually chased out of the suburbs even with ag preservation zoning. Although maybe the local food movement is bringing back what used to be called truck farming, blurring the line again.
Very low density, lack of suburban amenities, ranch and country style homes, large plot homes, ranching and farming is a big part of the economy, septic tanks and wells for water, maybe a few suburban subdvisions.
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