only be enumerated before moving on to discuss the problems and
policy issues they pose for rural America. Demographic and economic
trends are revealed in analyses of readily available data.
The demographic trends are generally clear. The nonmetropolitan
population grew more rapidly than the metropolitan population over-
all and in most states during the 1970s, but by the late 1970s this
“turnaround” had slowed down; and in the early 1980s it almost has
turned back around in most states. There is no evidence, however, of
a return to the earlier pattern of massive rural to urban migration.
While the reasons for these trends are still under investigation in
demography (Fuguitt), it seems apparent that economic factors, such
as the energy boom of the 1970s and the energy bust of the 1980s,
have been important contributors.
The 1980s began with a severe economic recession ending a period
of strong rural (or, more precisely, nonmetro) economic growth
(Brown and Deavers). The 1980s slowdown in the rural economy can
be attributed to the convergence of a number of influences.
Mark Henry and associates discuss some of the leading forces: in-
ternational trends, the shift to services, deregulation and agricul-
tural change. At the international level, increased foreign
competition, the strong dollar and weak world markets have had neg-
ative effects on manufacturing, agriculture, energy and forest prod-
ucts industries. Rural community economies often depend on
these—and often on a single one of them. The shift to services, as the
booming sector of the national economy, has been of relatively little
benefit to rural areas because the kinds of services that have been
growing rapidly, such as business and computer services, and their
markets are concentrated in urban areas. Deregulation of banking
and transportation industries, according to Henry, has removed some
of the protection rural areas once had from the high interest rates
associated with the costs of urban banks and from the true market
costs of transportation. Finally, Henry notes, structural changes in
agriculture in the first half of the 1980s created severe economic
pressures in many rural communities. Ihken together, these trends
paint a bleak picture of the situation in rural America.
Rural Problems
Recent upheavals have exacerbated problems associated with pre-
vailing rural patterns—with the growing social cost of rural space,
the increasing importance of world dynamics affecting rural commu-
nity life and the changing role of territory in rural social organiza-
tion. The upshot is a cluster of severe rural problems.
Five problems in particular deserve attention as challenges for na-
tional policy. These are the income (or poverty) gap; the gap in ser-
vices, infrastructure and amenities; economic and social inequality;