Persistent Poverty and Place: How Do Persistent Poverty Dynamics and Demographics
Vary Across the Rural-Urban Continuum?
Kathleen K. Miller, Rural Policy Research Institute
Bruce A. Weber, Oregon State University
Volume 1, Issue No. 1, November 2003

This issue brief examines how poverty and persistent poverty vary across the Urban Influence Codes developed by ERS and where poverty is concentrated in the United States. The location, rurality and demographics of counties that escaped persistent poverty status between 1990 and 2000 are examined, and the new entrants into high poverty since 1960 are identified.

Exploring Diversity in Rural Canada
William Reimer, Concordia University
Volume 1, Issue No. 2, March 2004

This brief examines diversity that starts from a concern with rural revitalization. This concern emerged from the view that rural people face significant challenges that are devitalizing their economic and social conditions, especially at a local level. It is wished to understand the processes that contributed to the challenges in order to develop appropriate long-term responses to them, rather than deal only with the outcomes in a piece-meal fashion. This approach led to a research design identifying diversity of processes and conditions rather than outcomes alone.

Is Rural Location to Blame? Accounting for Lower Income Levels in Tribal Areas
Robin M. Leichenko, Rutgers University
Volume 2, Issue No. 1, March 2005

Persistent poverty is frequently identified as a key problem on American Indian (AI) tribal lands in the United States. Yet the fact that tribal lands are typically located in isolated, nonmetropolitan areas suggests that lower per capita income levels in tribal areas may be largely due to locational factors, such as lack of access to markets, absence of agglomeration economies, and inadequate infrastructure. This research evaluates the role of location-specific factors and other characteristics in accounting for differences in income levels between tribal and non-tribal areas.

Searching for Jobs
The Growing Importance of Rural Proprietors
Stephan J. Goetz, NERCRD
Volume 2, Issue No. 2, June 2005

Many rural counties have lost jobs over the last decades to globalization and labor-saving technological change. These forces have primarily impacted manufacturing and extractive industries such as farming, logging and mining, which represent the economic backbone of many communities. However, as the traditional economic base of these communities has eroded, jobs have also been lost in the sectors that directly or indirectly serve the manufacturing and extractive industries. For example, retail stores have been shuttered along with schools as districts have laid off teachers and consolidated schools in response to declining student numbers.

Creating Metropolitan and Micropolitan Stastistical Areas
Michael R. Ratcliffe, United States Census Bureau
Volume 3, Issue No. 1, March 2006

This brief provides an overview of the metropolitan and micropolitan statistical area concept and standards. It also focuses on the relationship between settlement form and function, how this relationship is represented within the metropolitan and micropolitan statistical area classification, and how the classification relates to urban and rural definitions. This brief concludes with some thoughts on how the use of metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas in analysis, policy development and program implementation affects our understanding of what these areas represent.

Measuring Economic Distress: A Comparison of Designations and Measures
Amy Glasmeier, Pennsylvania State University; Larry Wood, Ohio University; and Kurt Fuellhart, Shippensburg University
Volume 3, Issue No. 2, April 2006

This paper explores the use of different measures of economic health and distress primarily in relationship to rural areas. The authors present three measures of distress: the economic distress index of the Economic Development Administration (EDA), the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), and the Economic Health Index (EHI) that was developed in earlier research for the Appalachian Regional Commission. Changes in the counties qualifying as distressed under the EHI from 1960 through 2000 are analyzed.