Far more than their city cousins, rural Americans put down roots. In fact, 42 percent of them live in the community where they grew up, versus the 30 percent rate reported by city dwellers. And despite high concern among rural residents about jobs and the economy, even those who are down on their luck are often loath to move, according to a poll that compared urban and rural attitudes.
The survey by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation found that rural residents stay in place longer, even if they don’t live where they grew up. Some 52 percent of rural participants in the poll said they had lived in their current community for at least 10 years; for urban residents, the rate was 41 percent. Conversely, urban and suburban residents were more likely to be comparative newcomers; nearly half of city dwellers said they had lived in their current communities for less than five years.
“We often talk about the rural–urban split in America,” says Vox. “But this distinction misses a nuance: Americans are some of the most frequent migrants in the world; we don’t attach ourselves to a set geography.” In its story about economic and cultural influences on political viewpoints, Vox said roughly 1 in 8 Americans moves during a year.
When researchers interviewed people at rural high school reunions, they found that those who stayed in their hometowns tended to be have less schooling, to earn less, and to be less hopeful; they were also more insular and less open to immigrants, says Vox. One of the researchers, John Cromartie of the USDA, suggested the attachments of “kinship and close ties” knitted some people into rural communities.
An array of polling, including the Post-Kaiser survey, show that rural voters tended to back President Trump in last fall’s election. Vox cited a Public Religion Research Institute survey that found people who lived in or near their hometowns were more likely to vote for Trump than for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who did well in urban voting. Respondents in the Post-Kaiser poll said they had different values than people on the other side of the urban–rural divide.
Thirty percent of rural residents named jobs and the economy as the top problem in their community, followed by healthcare. Fewer rural Americans said they were working full time than the national average, and 29 percent said had been laid off or lost a job in the past five years. Still, some 46 percent of those who were unemployed or wanted a better job said they were not willing to move to a different state for employment.
Despite lackluster job opportunities, rural Americans said their local communities had a desirable cost of living and good schools, were a safe place to live, and were a good place to raise children. By a much higher percentage than urban or suburban residents, they described their town as a place where people look out for one another.
Nonetheless, 59 percent said they would encourage young adults in the community to leave for more opportunity elsewhere. The national average for telling young adults to stay or to leave is about 50 percent.
During his tenure as agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack used to chide rural leaders for selling short the advantages of their regions—dynamic agribusiness sectors that embrace high technology and towns that offer a ready sense of community and a wide variety of outdoor recreation.
But agricultural consolidation has resulted in fewer, albeit larger, farms, and many rural towns struggle to maintain population. For decades, young people tended to move away in search of jobs. “It’s a theme that runs through a lot of historical research on rural America,” Ken Johnson, a University of New Hampshire demographer, told Vox.
Rural America ranks at the bottom in key measures of socioeconomic well-being, compared with big cities, suburbs, and medium or small metropolitan areas, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. “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. … In fact, the total rural population—accounting for births, deaths, and migration—has declined for five straight years,” says the Journal.
To read the topline results of the Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey of rural America, click here.