Census Bureau redefines what towns are 'urban' or 'rural'

More than 1,100 cities, towns and villages in the U.S. lost their status as urban areas on Thursday as the U.S. Census Bureau released a new list of places considered urban based on revised criteria.

Around 4.2 million residents living in 1,140 small cities, hamlets, towns and villages that lost their urban designation were bumped into the rural category. The new criteria raised the population threshold from 2,500 to 5,000 people and housing units were added to the definition.

The change matters because rural and urban areas often qualify for different types of federal funding for transportation, housing, health care, education and agriculture. 

“The whole thing about urban and rural is all about money,” said Mary Craigle, bureau chief for Montana’s Research and Information Services. “Places that qualify as urban are eligible for transportation dollars that rural areas aren’t, and then rural areas are eligible for dollars that urban areas are not.”

The Census Bureau this year made the biggest modification in decades to the definition of an urban area. The bureau adjusts the definition every decade after a census to address any changes or needs of policymakers and researchers. The bureau says it is done for statistical purposes and it has no control over how government agencies use the definitions to distribute funding.

There were 2,646 urban areas in the mainland U.S., Puerto Rico and U.S. islands on the new list released Thursday. Among them were three dozen new urban areas that were rural a decade ago.

Under the old criteria, an urbanized area needed to have at least 50,000 residents. An urban cluster was defined as having at least 2,500 people, a threshold that had been around since 1910. Under this definition, almost 81% of the U.S. was urban and 19% was rural over the past decade.

Under the new definition, hammered out after the 2020 census, the minimum population required for an area to be considered urban doubled to 5,000 people. Originally, the Census Bureau proposed raising the threshold to 10,000 people but pulled back amid opposition. The new criteria for urban areas shift the urban-rural ratio slightly, to 79.6% and 20.4%, respectively.

In 1910, a town with 2,500 residents had a lot more goods and services than a town that size does today, “and these new definitions acknowledge that,” said Michael Cline, North Carolina’s state demographer.

With the new criteria, the distinction between an urbanized area and an urban cluster has been eliminated since the Census Bureau determined there was little difference in economic activities between communities larger and smaller than 50,000 residents.

Of the 50 states, California was the most urban, with 94.2% of its population living in an urban area. Vermont was the most rural, with almost 65% of its population residing in rural areas.



(AP Photo)