Accounting for two population turnarounds in nonmetropolitan America

Abstract

"The turnaround [in U.S. rural-to-urban migration] of the 1970s, the metropolitan resurgence of the 1980s, and the rural rebound of the 1990s [have been] described as three unanticipated changes in migration.... [This chapter] compares the magnitude of the three changes in net migration and contrasts the two nonmetropolitan turnarounds.... The results support a view of the 1970s turnaround as the outcome of long-term deconcentrating trends that were interrupted from the late 1970s to the late 1980s by circumstances that favored metropolitan areas. The return of nonmetropolitan territory to net in-migration in the 1990s appears to be due in part to favorable economic conditions that allow more people to act on preferences for smaller places."