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RURAL REALITY vs. REALITY TV:
ANATOMY OF A PUBLIC AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

Rural facts

Fifty-six million Americans - about one-fifth of U.S. residents - live in rural areas. If rural America were a separate country, it would rank as the world's 23rd largest nation, just behind France, Great Britain, and Italy. The American rural landscape contains 2,305 counties and 80 percent of the nation's land area.

Rural America is a diverse mix of people, cultures, geography, industry, and institutions. No single set of challenges and opportunities describes its entirety, but some facts do suggest the breadth of social and economic issues confronting rural people.

• Of the 250 poorest counties in the United States, 244 are rural.
• Rural households earn an average of 27 percent less than their metropolitan counterparts.
• The rural poverty rate is 21 percent higher than the metropolitan poverty rate.
• In 1996-98 the suicide rate for males over 15 years of age was nearly 80 percent higher in rural areas than in large metropolitan counties.
• Rural areas have about half the number of physicians per capita as urban areas.
• Drug use among young teens is significantly higher in rural than in urban America. Rural eighth graders, for example, are 104 percent likelier to use amphetamines and 83 percent likelier to use crack cocaine.
• Spending in rural school districts is 25 percent less per pupil than in metropolitan districts.
• Nearly 40 percent of the rural population does not have access to public transportation. More than half of the rural poor do not own automobiles.
• Ninety percent of farm families' income is derived from non-farm sources, such as another job. Manufacturing, services, and other industry dominate seven out of eight rural counties.

Despite challenges, rural America is still full of promise. But fulfilling this promise requires an informed response from our nation's philanthropists, policy makers, and the private sector. Innovative rural policies, combined with community-based leadership, can provide rural communities with tools to build on their strengths, develop their assets, and create a better future.