I'm Not the Only One! (by JB)

The “Rural Renaissance” movement, as it has been recently named, is being noticed as more and more people are moving back to the country. Here are some interesting quotes from sociologists and government agencies:

"The new arrivals are a mixed lot of retirees, blue-collar workers, lone-eagle professionals, and disenchanted city dwellers; all see a better way of life..."

“More people are moving from urban to rural areas and fewer rural people are leaving. Most rural areas in the U.S. are now growing at the fastest rate in more than 20 years, only the second period of widespread rural growth in 80 years.”

"Data from the 2000 Census reveal that [rural] areas of the United States contained 56.1 million residents, a gain of 5.6 million since April of 1990. In all, 1,702 of 2,303 nonmetropolitan counties grew between 1990 and 2000; 662 more than during the 1980s. Most of the growth came from net migration rather than from the natural increase (births-deaths) that has traditionally fueled nonmetropolitan growth."

“The increasing propensity for those in their 30s (and their children) to move to or remain in rural areas...under-65 age group may now be contributing much more to the rural migration than those over 65."

Source: The Rural Rebound: Recent Nonmetropilitan Demographic Trends in the United States by Kenneth Johnson and Calvin Beale, 1999.

"Where large, industrial-style farms impose a scorched-earth mentality on resource management -- no trees, no wildlife, endless monoculture -- small farmers can be very effective stewards of natural resources and soil...preserving biodiversity, open space, and trees, and reducing land degradation."

"In the United States, small farmers devote 17 percent of their area to woodlands, compared to only five percent on large farms, and keep nearly twice as much of their land in "soil improving uses."

Source: Institute for Food and Development Policy, Backgrounder, Winter 1999, Vol. 6, No. 4.

"Rural America is home to a fifth of the Nation's people, keeper of natural amenities and natural treasures, and safeguard of a unique part of American culture, tradition and history, [comprising] over 2,000 counties and containing 75 percent of the Nation's land."

Source: the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service

Interesting...