Slightly more than 60 million people live in rural America, and they are far more likely to own their homes than people living in cities, says the Census Bureau, extracting data from its American Community Survey. The data say rural Americans are more likely to be military veterans and to live in the same state as where they were born.
Some 81 percent of rural Americans own their homes —- and it’s more likely to be a single-family home — compared to the 60 percent of urbanites who are homeowners. Median house values are much higher in the city, so monthly housing costs are lower in the country. According to Census, 44 percent of rural Americans own their homes outright, with no mortgage or loan. Only 32 percent of city residents can say that.
Slightly more than 10 percent of rural residents are military veterans, compared to less than 8 percent of urbanites. And two-thirds of rural residents live in their state of birth; the figure is 48 percent for people living in town. Median household income was lower in rural areas but so was the poverty rate.
In completely rural counties, people tended to be slightly older than in counties with some or a majority urban population, said a Census blog titled “Rurality matters.” They also are more likely to live alone, to be uninsured and to be poor.
Rural America, which is everything outside of communities with at least 2,500 people, covers 97 percent of the United States and contains 19 percent of the population, said another blog. Maine and Vermont have the highest proportion of residents in rural areas, about 61 percent. Nearly two-thirds of rural Americans live east of the Mississippi River. Some 28 million people in the South live in rural areas, accounting for 47 percent of the U.S. rural population. Of the 3,142 counties in the nation, 704 are completely rural, 1,185 counties are mostly rural, with at least half of their residents in rural areas, and 1,253 counties were mostly urban. “Only 29 counties in the country had no rural residents,” said the blog, “Life off the highway.”