Rural and Nonmetropolitan Population Trends of Significance to National Population Policy

About a fourth of the American population is rural -- living in the open country or in towns of less than 2,500 inhabitants. If one adds to this the towns of up to 50,000 people but excludes rural people in the environs of large cities, the nonmetropolitan population is about thirty percent of the total. There is great diversity in the structure and trends of rural and/or nonmetropolitan populations in the United States. Some of these areas are still in the midst of agricultural adjustments that are producing partial depopulation and contributing to urban congestion through a steady stream of outmigration. Others are absorbing the equivalent of their natural population increase and have natural and economic advantages for development. The vast rural to urban migration of the last generation has been necessary and rational. Most migrants believe they have benefitted themselves by moving. Although much of the movement has been impelled by declining farm and coal mining employment, much of it has stemmed from comparatively high rural fertility and the resulting pressures on local job supply. Rural fertility has contributed disproportionately to U.S. total population growth and requires more attention in family planning programs if national population limitation objectives are to be attained. Both rural and urban areas have advantages and disadvantages for quality of life. The Nation will continue to be predominantly urban, but more of its people express a desire for rural or small town residence than presently live in such places.