The Revised ERS County Typology:
Peggy J. Cook and Karen L. Mizer
ERS
Rural Development Research Report No. 89. ,
Nov 1994
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This report describes an expanded and revised version of the Economic Research Service's 1979
classification of nonmetro counties, commonly called the ERS typology. The classification has been
widely used by researchers, policy analysts, and public officials as a source of information about the
economic and social diversity characterizing rural America. The revised typology classifies counties
designated as nonmetro in 1993 into one of six nonoverlapping types that indicate the county's
primary economic activity: farming-dependent, mining-dependent, manufacturing-dependent,
government-dependent, services-dependent, and nonspecialized. The revised typology also classifies
counties according to five other overlapping types with special relevancy for rural policy:
retirement-destination, Federal lands, commuting, persistent poverty, and tranfers-dependent. This
analysis focuses on the distributions of nonmetro counties across the types and provides brief
economic and sociodemographic profiles for each type. Particular attention is given to population and
economic changes during the 1980's.
Order this report (stock #ERSRDRR89)
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page updated: January 2, 2001
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