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- Info
Accounting for two population turnarounds in nonmetropolitan America
| Author: |
Long, Larry; Nucci, Alfred |
| Date: |
1998 |
| Periodical: |
Research in Rural Sociology and Development. JAI Press Inc. |
| Abstract: |
This article compares the magnitude of the three changes in net migration and contrasts the two nonmetropolitan turnarounds. We compare migration trends in nonmetropolitan areas, older metropolitan territory, new metropolitan fringes, and newly-recognized metropolitan areas, and we try to identify when, within each decade, change occurred so as to look for "period" influences that might account for migration changes. We investigate the extent to which each of the turnarounds resulted from (1) greater numbers of metropolitan residents moving to the countryside or (2) fewer rural residents moving to metropolitan areas. We assess the degree to which various types of nonmetropolitan counties (retirement counties, farm counties, etc.) participated in the two turnarounds, and we test the "manufacturing hypothesis" regarding the nonmetropolitan surge in the 1970s and retreat in the 1980s. The results support a view of the 1970s turnaround as the outcome of long-term deconcentrating trends that were interrupted from the late 1970s to the late 1980s by circumstances that favored metropolitan areas. The return of nonmetropolitan territory to net in-migration in the 1990s appears to be due in part to favorable economic conditions that allow more people to act on preferences for smaller places. Nonmetropolitan migration depends strongly upon what happens in various parts of metropolitan territory (where 80% of the population lives) and is increasingly sensitive to worldwide trade and economic trends. |
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