The nation's most urban counties continue to attract Americans by the millions, according to the Census Bureau's 2014 county population estimates. A Demo Memo analysis of 2010-to-2014 county population trends along the Rural-Urban Continuum documents strong city growth (the bigger, the better) and unrelenting rural decline.
The Rural-Urban Continuum is the federal government's way of classifying counties by their degree of urbanity. The continuum is a scale ranging from 1 (the most urban counties, in metropolitan areas of 1 million or more) to 9 (the most rural counties, lacking any settlements of 2,500 or more people and not adjacent to a metropolitan area). If you sort the nation's 3,142 counties by their rank on the continuum, then measure population change between 2010 and 2014 for each rank, this is the result...
County population change 2010-2014 by Rural-Urban Continuum Rank
1. 4.2% for rank 1 counties, in metros with 1 million or more people
2. 3.0% for rank 2 counties, in metros of 250,000 to 1 million people
3. 2.1% for rank 3 counties, in metros with less than 250,000 people
4. 0.1% for rank 4 counties, nonmetro adjacent to metro with urban pop of 20,000+
5. 1.4% for rank 5 counties, nonmetro not adjacent to metro with urban pop of 20,000+
6. -0.7% for rank 6 counties, nonmetro adjacent to metro with urban pop of 2,500-19,999
7. -0.5% for rank 7 counties, nonmetro not adjacent to metro with urban pop of 2,500-19,999
8. -1.4% for rank 8 counties, nonmetro adjacent to metro with urban pop less than 2,500
9. -0.9% for rank 9 counties, nonmetro not adjacent to metro, urban pop less than 2,500
The most urban counties (a 1 on the scale) grew the fastest between 2010 and 2014. The most rural counties (8 and 9 on the scale) experienced the biggest declines.
Source: USDA, Economic Research Service, Rural-Urban Continuum Codes and Census Bureau, Population Estimates, County Totals: Vintage 2014
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