Rural communities growing

Planetizen -  Rural communities in the United States grew for a fourth straight year, according to Census estimates.

“Nonmetropolitan, or rural, counties grew by 134,000 residents between 2023 and 2024, reversing a decade-long trend of population decline that happened between 2010 and 2020.” Although deaths still outnumber births in rural areas, a phenomenon known as natural decrease, more people moved to rural areas than the number of people who left.

According to Melotte, “A similar trend occurred in smaller metropolitan areas. Metro counties with populations fewer than 250,000, referred to simply as small metros in the table below, lost just over 2,000 residents to natural decrease in 2024. These counties, however, also gained an additional 226,200 residents by people moving in.” Only the nation’s largest and medium-sized metros had growth that was a combination of in-migration and natural growth.