Colleagues,
We had an interesting discussion a while back on urban-rural definitions and it prompted me to look at the latest Census Bureau definitions that came out in late December
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/geo-areas/urban-rural.html
I'm looking at some of the changes -- in a nutshellf the 'urban' definition was restricted to a minimum 5,000 (up from 2,500) population OR 2,000 housing units (a new metric), causing a number of places between 2,500 and 5,000 population to change from 'urban' to 'rural' and a handful of places with low population but high housing units (they seem to be spots for vacation rentals or second homes) to change from 'rural' to 'urban'
My question since there are so many involved with grants and other funding support here -- does this make any practical difference for funding? Preliminary questioning led me to documentation like this suggesting that, at least for health care, this Urban Area definition is not considered useful for funding purposes because it doesn't follow county or municipal boundaries. BUT under certain conditions the presence of a UA can determine whether an 'outlying' county in a metro can be considered rural. "Starting in FY 2022, we’ll consider all outlying metro counties without a UA to be rural." according to this https://www.hrsa.gov/rural-health/about-us/what-is-rural
Has anybody heard of any effects of these changed 'rural' definitions on funding or anything else as a practical matter? I'm having a hard time finding specific cases, if you know of any I'd love to hear on or off the list -- Tim Henderson, Pew Stateline
Another example of what Hassan has stated is transportation funding. to be eligible for certain funding programs, the USDOT requires roads be designated in either rural or urban. the Rural Surface Transportation Grant program is one example: https://www.transportation.gov/grants/rural-areas-defined as is the Federal Transit Administration's 5311 program: www.transit.dot.gov/rural-formula-grants-5311
Good to know about this, thanks. Once again this definition of rural is less than 50,000 population so no effect on the category we’re addressing, 2,500-4,999 population
“The Formula Grants for Rural Areas program provides capital, planning, and operating assistance to states to support public transportation in rural areas with populations of less than 50,000”
oh and JamiRae i see now that your first link mentions the presence of a UA as a criteria, I think this is a source of confusion because the new changes do away with the distinction between Urban Area and Urban Cluster, so at the time these criteria were written an "Urban Area" was at least 50,000 population.