overview
All rural communities are concerned about economic and community development.
However, the goals of development programs and policies vary widely.
In some rural places, development strategies aim at stimulating economic
and community growth to address problems associated with population
and employment decline. Elsewhere, growth is not the objective. Instead,
the community may desire to improve wages and standards of living
by changing the nature of employment, or by enhancing infrastructure
and public services. Some places may actually want to stem growth
in order to limit rural sprawl and encourage sustainable development
that is environmentally friendly.
Among the most important development programs for rural areas are
Federal infrastructure, business, housing, and general assistance
programs. ERS research monitors and assesses the latest developments
for these programs. In addition, ERS analysis of the geographic
pattern of funding for these programs helps identify which places
are most affected by program changes. Other ERS research provides
information to better understand how Federal programs and policies
work, how effective they are, and how they interrelate with State
and local government policies. More overview...
contents
features
Moving Rural
Residents to Work: Lessons Learned from Eight Job Access and Reverse
Commute (JARC) ProjectsThe JARC program was established in 1998
to assist States and localities to develop transportation services
to connect welfare recipients and other low-income residents to jobs
and support programs. This study documents case studies of eight
rural areas receiving JARC funding in 1999. It highlights specific
program
elements, including the implementation process, transportation services
provided, and the solutions developed to deal with the challenges
of distance and low population densities that rural transit systems
frequently face.
Rural America, Vol. 17,
No. 2—This issue contains an article describing recent Federal
legislative and regulatory changes affecting rural development. Also
included are articles on Federal tax policy, nonmetro earnings trends,
trends in income inequality, economic well-being of farm operator
households, population change in the Midwest, and two articles covering
rural health issues.
Rural America, Vol.
17, No. 3—This issue's main theme is the aging of rural
America. It includes two articles on Federal funds: one focusing
on Federal funding in rural elderly counties and another showing
Federal funding variations by region and major type of assistance.
Also included are articles on small rural communities' quest for
safe drinking water, rising housing prices, socioeconomic impacts
of the Conservation Reserve Program in North Dakota, and earnings
of hired farmworkers.
Rural America, Vol.
17, No. 4—This final issue of Rural America contains
several articles focusing on development policy, including Federal
funding in the Delta and in Appalachia, the economic impact of rural
water/sewer facilities, and the evolving Resource Conservation and
Development program. Other articles examine rural recreation counties,
rural population loss, migration, poverty, jobs and earnings, agricultural
land ownership, the rural employment impacts of changing labor skills
in food processing plants, and the rural economic impact of growing
U.S.-China trade.
recommended readings
Rural Economic Development:
What Makes Rural Communities Grow?—This report covers the
findings of an econometric study identifying significant factors
affecting rural economic growth.
Development at the Urban Fringe
and Beyond: Impacts on Agriculture and Rural Land—This
report describes the forces driving development, its character and
impacts on agriculture and rural communities, the means available
to channel and control growth, and the pros and cons of potential
Federal roles.
Small Communities'
Quest for Safe Drinking Water—This article in Rural
America describes the challenges faced by small community drinking
water systems that characterize much of rural America.
Communications
& the Internet in Rural America—This article in Agricultural
Outlook analyzes recent data on the diffusion of advanced telecommunications
in rural areas and the role of Federal policy in meeting the special
diffusion challenges rural areas face.
See all recommended readings …
recommended data products
Federal Funds Data, Fiscal 1998-2001—Federal
funds data newly updated to include fiscal 1998-2001, consist of
4 years of data, located in directories 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001.
Except for 1999, the data are in the form of SAS data sets. Data
include 16 data files, 16 SAS sample data extraction program files,
4 text "read me" documentation files, and 4 data description
documentation files (one for each year). The Federal funds database
presents annual expenditures or obligations for each Federal program
and for each county and State. Data are screened for accuracy to
the county level and then aggregated by function and type of program,
and by type of county, State, and region. The data include Federal
expenditures and obligations for grants, salaries and wages, procurements,
direct payments, direct loans, guaranteed loans, and insurance.
Federal Funds Data,
Fiscal 1994-1997—Consists of 4 years of data, located in
directories 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997. Directories include 4 raw
data files in ASCII format, 4 SAS sample data extraction program
files, 4 ASCII documentation files (one for each raw file), 3 Lotus
1-2-3 worksheet (.wk3) data files and 2 Lotus documentation files.
Documentation file is for all years. A readme.txt file has detailed
description of the data.
recent research developments
Rural
Tourism: An Annotated Bibliography, by ERS researcher, Dennis
M. Brown, unpublished 2002 manuscript, available electronically
from the Rural Information Service. This paper provides a review
of the literature of rural tourism strategies.
Stories
Across America: Opportunities For Rural Tourism, by Suzanne
Dane, was published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation
in 2001. Interested in developing a rural tourism strategy? This
report provides an interesting description of approaches used in
various places across the country. Most involve heritage- and amenity-based
tourism, agritourism, and the use of scenic highways or seaways.
National Parks and Rural Development: Practice and Policy in
the United States, edited by Gary E. Machlis and Donald R. Field,
was published by Island Press in 2000. This book covers the history
of both national parks and rural development programs and the relationship
between parks and adjacent communities. It includes several case
studies from the U.S., plus an essay with an international perspective.
related briefing rooms
related links
 maps
and images gallery
The rural Delta faces many developmental challenges. The recently
created Delta Regional Authority should help address some of these
problems. As this map
shows, most of the counties benefiting from this program are nonmetropolitan.
Rural
housing loans—USDA's main program aimed at increasing home
ownership is the section 502 program, administered by the Rural
Housing Service. This program offers direct loans to low-income
individuals, and guaranteed loans to low-to-medium income individuals.
These maps from the Rural Housing briefing room show the geographic
distribution of these two components of the 502 program in fiscal
year 2001.
Community facilities
loans—This map from the Federal Funds briefing room shows
the geographic distribution of loans financed by this USDA-Rural
Housing Service program that assists miscellaneous forms of community
infrastructure.
Business assistance—This
map from the Federal Funds briefing room shows the geographic distribution
of business assistance in the United States, adding together the
business assistance programs offered by USDA, EDA, SBA, and other
Federal agencies.
for more information, contact:
Richard Reeder
web administration: webadmin@ers.usda.gov
page updated: March
3, 2004
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