In the late 1970s both jobs and population were growing more rapidly outside metropolitan areas. As a group, nonmetropolitan counties not adjacent to a metropolitan area experienced a faster rate of employment growth than metropolitan areas between 1975-79. Even in rural counties (no urban place of 2,500 or more) not adjacent to a metropolitan…

An unexpected demographic development in the United States in the 1970's was the shift of nonmetropolitan areas to net inmigration, reversing a 70-year trend. Using the 1970 definition of metropolitan, the percent of the population living in metropolitan areas fell from 69% in 1970 to 67.8% in 1978. No easily identifiable set of reasons explained…