Procedures for Developing a Policy-Oriented Classification of Nonmetropolitan Counties

摘要

The report documents the procedures and results of classifying U.S. nonmetro counties into seven socioeconomic types: agriculture, government, manufacturing, mining, Federal lands, poverty, and retirement. The classification accounted for 2,073 of 2,443 counties falling into one or more types. Sixty percent fell into only one of seven types with the least amount of overlap occurring for the agriculture and manufacturing counties. The largest amount of overlap occurred among the poverty and Federal lands counties. An evaluation of the classification highlights the growing diversity in rural areas and the expanding nonagricultural character of rural America through the rise of new industrial specializations.