(April 2, 2024)
A Daily Yonder Analysis of 2023 Census Bureau data showed that rural America gained in population for the second year in a row, continuing to reverse a trend a decade trend towards loss of rural population.
This gain occurred primarily in counties closest to metropolitan areas and resulted from the movement of people to these counties from other parts of the country or abroad.
From 2022 to 2023, the number of people living in non-metropolitan (rural) counties increased by 109,000 residents, an increase of 0.24%. That's slightly more than the 56,000 residents rural America gained from 2021 to 2022. Those gains came after rural America lost nearly 300,000 residents in the 2010s.
Meanwhile, metro counties grew by 1.5 million residents between 2022 and 2023, a 0.53% increase in population.
Migration fueled rural growth
In nonmetropolitan counties, growth is primarily driven by the movement of people to rural communities, both from the United States and abroad.
Annual census population estimates include births, deaths and migration figures. These numbers helped us see which demographic components caused changes in the U.S. population.
From 2022 to 2023, 229,000 people moved to rural counties. Seventy-nine percent of these migrants came from other parts of the United States, while the remaining 20% (48,000 people) came from outside the country.
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();
But this gain was offset by what demographers call natural decline, which occurs when the number of deaths exceeds the number of births. In 2023, rural counties recorded 610,000 deaths and 491,000 births. Non-metropolitan counties lost 119,000 residents to natural decline.
Rural counties near cities are gaining population
Ninety-seven percent of rural population growth occurred in nonmetropolitan counties adjacent to metropolitan counties. From 2022 to 2023, rural counties adjacent to metropolises welcomed 105,000 residents. Counties not adjacent to metro areas gained only 3,500 residents.
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();
The table above divides non-metropolitan counties into two types: those that are adjacent to a metropolitan area and those that are not.
In urban-adjacent and non-adjacent counties, domestic migration was the primary driver of population growth. From 2022 to 2023, 159,000 domestic migrants moved to rural counties near metropolitan centers, while 22,000 domestic migrants moved to rural counties not adjacent to urban counties.
From 2022 to 2023, 4,300 people moved to Jackson County, Georgia, a rural county of about 89,000 adjacent to Athens, for example.
Metropolitan growth returns to pre-pandemic norm
From 2022 to 2023, metropolitan counties grew faster than non-metropolitan counties, and growth in the nation's largest cities returned to pre-pandemic models.
Demographic change in large metropolitan areas (those with 1 million or more inhabitants) gained 128,000 inhabitants between 2022 and 2023, an increase of 0.14%. These places population lost during the pandemicbut last year's gain represents a nationwide shift toward pre-pandemic demographic trends, according to the Census Bureau.
The suburbs of large metropolitan counties, for their part, experienced growth of 0.78% compared to 2022, an addition of 746,000 additional people.
The largest population gains occurred in the suburbs of mid-sized metropolises, which added 183,000 residents to the population, a growth of 1% since 2022. Brunswick County, North Carolina, a community coastal area of around 160,000 inhabitants, gained 7,000 more people between 2022. and 2023, for example.
Small and medium-sized metropolises saw their populations increase by about half a percentage point between 2022 and 2023. Small metropolises grew by 172,000 residents, while medium-sized metropolises grew by 300,000 residents.
Statewide data
Some of the most significant rural growth has occurred in the South. Among the fastest growing states are Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida.
Texas saw the largest gross increase in rural population. About 27,000 people moved to non-metropolitan Texas counties between 2022 and 2023. But that migration was offset by natural decay, when the number of deaths exceeds the number of births. The resulting net gain in rural Texas was 24,000 residents, an increase of 0.8% from 2022.
Florida, meanwhile, saw the highest rate of rural increase. Thirteen thousand people moved to rural Florida in 2023. But deaths exceeded births by about three to four. The resulting net population gain was approximately 1.47%, or 11,000 inhabitants.
Florida's rural growth was part of a statewide trend that saw the state rank second, behind South Carolina, in overall population growth.
However, not all states have seen an increase in rural population. Louisiana experienced the worst rate of rural population decline. Louisiana lost 5,900 rural residents, a decrease of 0.82% from 2022. About 4,500 people left rural Louisiana between 2022 and 2023, and the remainder of the population loss was due to natural decline .
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that rural America gained fewer residents between 2022 and 2023 than between 2021 and 2022.
This article first appeared on Daily life there and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
