Rural population in decline in parts of US

 Teresa Mull:

A new report finds that for the first time since these things have been kept track of, rural America’s population has shrunk. This trend is a shame for all Americans (except for a few of us who inhabit rural America and enjoy the solitude).

The University of New Hampshire Carsey School of Public Policy findings are based on Census data from April 2010-April 2020, pre-dating the Covid outbreak and its dubious effects on people’s migratory habits (a Pew Research survey suggests that reports of a mass urban exodus during the height of the pandemic were overblown). Kenneth Johnson, the sociology professor who conducted the study, reports that population loss “was widespread across rural America, with more than two-thirds of all nonmetropolitan counties losing population” during this period.

“The loss was minimal,” Johnson notes — “just 289,000 (-0.6 percent) out of 46 million, but it is the first decade-long rural population loss in history.”

The continued abandonment of rural America is disturbing for several reasons. Johnson cites “economic turbulence beginning with the Great Recession of 2007 and continuing through the next decade” as having a “significant demographic impact on rural America.”
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This appears to be the case in some small communities throughout the US.  However, as a Rural Texan, I am not seeing in Southeast Texas.  On the rural road, I am living on people are building new homes on several acre lots that were formerly pastures.  I live between two small Texas towns that are also growing with industry and new homes.  Small towns north of Houston are some of the fastest-growing urban areas in the country.  I think the same is true for North Texas and around Austin.  It is probably less true in the panhandle.