One notion that looms large is that rural America is geographically isolated from metropolitan areas and that this geographic isolation leads, in turn, to other forms of exclusion from mainstream life. In this view, rural communities are intellectually deprived, outside the circulation of current thought, and distanced from culture, economics, and opportunity. Conversely, others view the countryside as a place removed from the troubles and stresses of contemporary living. The reality is more complex.

Rural America is by definition geographically separate from urban areas. But isolation is in the eye of the beholder. About two-thirds of rural inhabitants live close enough to a metropolitan area to commute there for employment. Even greater numbers participate extensively in the marketplace of urban centers through regular shopping forays. Eighty percent of the mileage of the U.S. highway system lies in rural areas. 7 Geographic separation may make it more difficult for country families to shop the Mall of America, but geography alone does not necessarily prevent rural people from seeing a first-run movie, visiting a medical specialist, or finding the latest fashions at the Gap. Whether they can pay for those goods and services, of course, is another matter.

All but the remotest areas of the United States have access to the media behemoths that define, package, and deliver news of the moment, popular culture of the hour, and advertising for the ages. Rural areas were the first to widely use cable and satellite television. Long before Lands’ End, Amazon.com, and 800 telephone numbers, rural people participated in national commerce by purchasing mail-order goods. And pioneers did not necessarily head to the frontier to escape the national economy. Many went to find a niche in it by producing some commodity—grain, beef, coal, gold, saw logs, sugar cane—that could be converted to cash in a regional or national market. Native Americans, who were forced from their lands onto reservations, are an exception, as were African American agricultural slaves.

Nor does geography isolate rural America from the social and physical ills that beset metropolitan areas. Rural communities have the highest incidence of drug and alcohol addiction in the nation compared with suburban and inner-city addiction rates. 8 We may perceive rural America as a bucolic place where people work hard, live clean, drink pure water, and fill their lungs with clean air, but heart disease, Type II diabetes, and other chronic illnesses related to environment and lifestyle are epidemic in many rural places.

Geographic separation—if not absolute isolation—does make rural life different. As a group, Native Americans are the most affected by this geographic separation. The counties in which Native Americans comprise 30 percent or more of the population are more thinly populated than the rest of rural America. They are also more likely to be geographically remote from urban areas. Only 14 percent of counties with large numbers of Native Americans are adjacent to a metropolitan area, in contrast to 42 percent of all rural counties. Less than half of these Native American counties have a city of 2,500 or more, compared with two-thirds nationally.

Another demographic group hard hit by rural travel distances are those who live in poverty, about one in four rural residents. More than half of these residents do not own a car. Cars are not a luxury in rural communities—only 20 percent of rural Americans have access to public transportation. 9

Unfortunately, it is in economics that we find a consistent pattern in the lives of many rural residents. Nearly one-quarter of residents of rural counties live in persistent poverty. 10 Although rural poverty rates are at their lowest levels in 20 years, rural areas did not participate evenly in the economic expansion of the 1990s. In fact, poor rural residents became relatively worse off compared with their urban counterparts during the period. Rural poverty rates exceed urban rates in every region of the United States except the Northeast. 11 Rural child poverty rates are 25 percent higher than inner-city rates. All but 5 of the nation’s 200 most persistently poor counties are rural. 12

Telecommunications technology offers a possible strategy for mediating geographic isolation by connecting rural residents to the job centers in nearby and distant cities, but the actuality has not yet equaled the promise. High-speed Internet service remains expensive or unavailable for most rural residents. Telecommunications centers are beginning to dot the rural landscape, but most offer only entry-level employment possibilities at call centers and data input stations. 13

Conclusion

7: William P. Browne. The Failure of National Rural Policy: Institutions and Interests. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 2002. 8.
8: Browne. 19.
9: Browne. 19.
10: Browne. 19.
11: U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. "Rural Income, Poverty, and Welfare: Rural Poverty." World Wide Web: http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/IncomePovertyWelfare/ruralpoverty/
12: Save the Children. America's Forgotten Children: Child Poverty in Rural America. 2002. 18.
13: National Telecommunications Infrastructure Administration.