As Rural Areas Grow, So Do Tensions

The rapid growth of rural areas sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic, the rise of remote work, and increasingly unaffordable urban housing costs is a continuing source of frustration for rural residents who see their cost of living rising and their small communities changing. Nazmul Ahasan and Gregory Korte describe the crisis in Bloomberg CityLab.

As the authors explain, “The rural population expanded 0.3%, or 241,300 people, in the two years through mid-2022, according to Bloomberg calculations using Census data and a US Department of Agriculture methodology.” In 2021, the population in non-metro areas outgrew urban populations for the first time in three decades.

“The trend is sparking resentment as house prices in the top 10 rural counties that have seen the biggest population increases surged more than 40% over the past three years. Schools are overloaded and the shift is even impacting farmland prices.” In some of the most extreme cases like Jackson County, Georgia, home prices rose by 50 percent in the first half of 2023 compared to 2020.

The growth brings mixed feelings as “the arrival of new residents presents a dilemma for local officials, who prize the economic benefits they bring but also have to contend with poor infrastructure to sustain the growth. Locals complain about poor traffic infrastructure, noise, overloaded schools and even homelessness.”