Pew Research released a major rural vs urban study, and the headlines missed the best bits.

Pew Research’s new social trends study has shown up in a lot of news stories with widely varying headlines. Pew themselves titled it “Americans Are Less Likely Than Before COVID-19 To Want To Live in Cities, More Likely To Prefer Suburbs.”

There’s a lot more interesting rural conclusions to be drawn from this new data comparing people’s living preferences from 2018 to 2021. Most of the positive trends for rural places are being overlooked in the headlines. 

Way more people prefer rural than prefer urban

Right in the very first chart, there are several headline-worthy points that are worth noticing about where people would prefer to live.

More people prefer rural than urban, and the gap is increasing.

More people said they preferred to live in a rural place than an urban place. The gap was 13 percentage points in 2018, and the gap increased to 16 percentage points in 2021. The preference for rural over urban holds true in all age groups except the youngest, ages 18 to 29 in this study.

Way more people prefer rural than actually live in rural areas now.

While 35% say they prefer rural, around 17% of the total US population lives in rural places. Allowing for differences in the definitions of rural, and the survey question’s exclusion of those with no preference, it seems likely that a lot more people prefer rural than live rural right now. This implies there’s pent up demand for rural living. 

This aligns with previous studies of the number of people who would live rural if they had their choice. In 2018, Gallup asked people where they preferred to live, offering six different levels of urbanization to ruralization. Rural came out on top for all age groups, except for 18-29 year olds, where rural came in a surprising second out of the six choices. Trulia research in 2015 showed 7% more people wanted to live in rural places than did at the time.

From 2015 to 2018 to 2021 from three different research groups, that’s been a consistent finding: more people would prefer to live in rural places if they had a choice.

City people want to move to the suburbs. Suburbanites want to move to rural. Rural people want to stay put.

Only 25% of rural people who want to move say they would move to a different type of community if they could, compared to 35% of suburban and 43% of urban people. The percentage of urban people who said they wanted to move showed a big increase, from 37% in 2018 to 43% in 2021.

Rural people are most likely to say that if they moved, they’d stay in the same community type: 47% of rural people who want to move would stay rural, compared to 37% of suburbanites who’d stay in the suburbs and only 28% of urbanites who would stay urban.

43% of suburbanites and 23% of urbanites who want to move said they would like to move to rural places.

The pandemic didn’t increase preference for rural living, but it did increase motivation.

Daily Yonder pointed out that the number who preferred rural areas didn’t increase with the pandemic, despite apparent increases in the number of people moving into rural communities. People didn’t have to suddenly develop a preference for rural places, because the preference was already there.

What the pandemic changed was some people’s motivation to move because of perceived risk and some people’s ability to move with the rapid adoption of remote work. That’s what changed the demand and sent some rural real estate prices higher.

Rural vs. Urban challenges: city people feel worse

You may know that we run the Survey of Rural Challenges every other year, and I’m very interested in what people say their challenges are. Here’s what Pew found about challenges.

More urban people rated the pandemic effects as major.

Many more city people said the health and economic effects of the pandemic were major problems in their community than rural or suburban people. There was a 10 percentage point difference in each measure.

Urban and rural people are equally pessimistic about how long it will take to get back to normal, and suburban residents are a shade more optimistic there.

Urban people worried more about housing and drug abuse.

On most of the challenges the Pew survey listed, it appears that urban residents were more concerned about it than rural or suburban people.

Housing was a major problem to 63% of urban, but only 46% of suburban and 40% of rural people.

Drug addiction was a major problem in their area for 49% of urban, but only 40% of rural, 29% of suburban people.

Despite the differences, these percentages show a LOT of people facing major challenges.

Rural people were more likely to say access to doctors and hospitals and high speed internet access were major problems in their communities.

On healthcare, 22% of rural people rated it a major problem, but only 20% or fewer for urban and suburban people.

For high speed internet, it was 26% of rural people calling it a major problem in their communities versus 20% or fewer for urban and suburban.

Rural to urban, we want the same things in a community

What people said they consider important in a community hasn’t changed much compared to 2018. 

Most of the factors people wanted in their community scored similarly among rural, suburban and urban people.  We have these in common. 

The number one ranked factor is a community that is a good place to raise children. Rural-favoring factors that showed an increase in support between 2018 and 2021 included a community with access to recreational and outdoor activities and a place with a strong sense of community.

This also aligns with what rural people said in a 2021 Montana Extension survey. They selected some of the most remote and challenged rural communities to go find and talk to a few newcomers in their town. New residents said they were pulled to their new community because they want to raise their kids like they were raised, to be closer to nature, to have a slower pace of life and a lower cost of living. Being part of a small community and friendly people were the top things they loved about their new towns. 

Positive rural trends

Overall, the Pew Research study brought out some positive points for rural places to consider and largely agreed with previous studies of rural preferences. Society may realign significantly as work is increasingly decoupled from place.

Read the whole study at Pew: Americans Are Less Likely Than Before COVID-19 To Want To Live in Cities, More Likely To Prefer Suburbs

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or by email.

Top photo: Happiness mural in Colfax, Washington (population 2800) photo by Sarah McKnight.

Graphs: Pew Research

These upper floor murals were painted by the community members of Webster City, Iowa. It’s part of the bonus trend from this article. Photo by Michael Hansen, used by permission.

Who knows what trends will affect small and rural communities in 2022 and beyond?

Not many trends pieces cover rural places. These trends are specifically about rural and small towns.

I’ve been following rural trends and writing about them since 2009. My trends reports have been commissioned or quoted by Main Street America, Emergent Research, the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, Farm Bureau’s Rural Community Building, Small Business Trends and the George H.W. Bush Points of Light Foundation.

There’s a lot of uncertainty right now. These are larger scale trends that will be in play for years, not super micro trends that are already obvious or so small they’re subject to change next week.

Top 5 Rural and Small Town Trends for 2022 and beyond

1. New residents arriving.

After saying for years that remote work would bring more people to choose a rural residence, here we are: Zoom Towns!

The real trend isn’t an explosive exodus from major tech and population centers, but the more subtle diffusion of opportunities to a broader swath of places.

We’re seeing the convergence of multiple factors:

• a pandemic that forced a major adoption of remote work
• pent up demand for rural living
• improving rural broadband
• the great resignation and re-evaluation of life choices
• climate and disasters shifting relocation decisions
• increased rural tourism through the boom in road trips

Bonus trend: People are eager to belong.

With more people relocating, expect an increase in deliberate community building, reaching across polarizing divides.

Watch for projects in:

• Neighboring
• Beautification
• Belonging

2. Natural environment regenerating.

The shift from simple awareness or protection of the environment to deliberately trying to make things around you better.

Innovative farmers and ranchers are being better stewards, improving the land and environment with each successive season.

Indigenous People and Native Tribes are gaining control of more of their traditional lands, fostering regeneration and advocating environmental policy improvements.

Natural resources are changing, and new sustainable natural resources booms are coming that make sense in rural places including:

• timber and lignin
• mushroom and other natural fiber materials
• dirt, clay and earthen buildings
• renewable and greener energy

3. Leadership and power shifting.

Much like the surge in new residents, the shift in leadership started a long time ago. In 2015, we developed our Idea Friendly Method to help you understand and adapt to the shift from the formal to informal, from centralized to community, from control to chaos.

Awareness of the change is finally percolating up, even to the World Economic Forum. And it’s also percolating down, to the level of local organizations and officials in small towns.

Watch for:

• Less emphasis on joining boards or committees to talk about change
• More emphasis on joining activities you enjoy to take action

4. Rural healthcare reimagined.

Pressured by financial crises, closures and staff shortages before the pandemic, rural health care is due for reimagining. Between improving telemedicine and rapid advances in smart everything, will we still need general hospitals in small towns in 10 years? Do we really need them now? We’re already seeing rural communities come up with innovative answers that improve health care without focusing so much on the building.

Keep an eye on:

• Community involvement in health care facilities and futures
• Smart use of technology to improve people’s health

5. Economic barriers falling.

Equitable economic development is the buzzword of the moment in grants, programs and planning. For small towns, it’s really about making entrepreneurship easier for more people and creating a fairer economy.

Small towns are the testing grounds for the future, and rural people innovate. Want to be resilient in the next big crisis? Tap our innovative spirit.

Focus now on developing:

• Local supply chain
• Small makers
• Artisans
• Tiny manufacturers

Free video report:

Watch Deb Brown and me present these trends more in depth at SaveYour.Town: 2022 Rural Trends.

Watch the free video

This article cited by:

• Forbes – Research and Insights on Why Millennials and Gen Z Will Drive Small Town Entrepreneurship by Bernhard Schroeder
• Mendimi – Pse Millennials dhe Gen Z do të nxisin sipërmarrjen e qyteteve të vogla? Albania
• Bank of I.D.E.A.S. by Peter Kenyon, Community and Economic Development Matters Newsletter, April 13, 2022, Australia
• Wetzel-Tyler Chamber of Commerce newsletter

Wishing is feeling or expressing a strong desire for something that is not easily attainable. It’s like wishing to win the lottery but you don’t buy a ticket.

Hoping is to look forward with desire and reasonable confidence that something can happen. You can hope that you win the lottery because you have purchased a ticket.

My conclusion is that the differing factors between wishing and hoping are the process of looking forward and taking action which can entirely change the course of your circumstances!

I had never considered the distinction between wishing and hoping until I attended the Helping Small Towns Succeed Conference. I attended a breakout session to explain and foster the trait of hope for community leadership. From the presenter’s research it appears that followers of community leaders want two things 1) stability in the moment; and 2) hope for the future. But unfortunately, the vast majority of community leaders do not spend enough time creating hope.

Think about it: growth is all about looking forward. A sapling becomes a mighty oak by growing slowly over time. An infant grows into a child, who eventually becomes an adult. Hope is the same way. It looks forward. When we have hope, we can create a vision and takes steps toward a better future for ourselves and our communities, not just wishing for things that could be.

Planting the seed of hope requires a change in mindset; leaders who believe community growth is possible and commit to pursuing it. The change in focus from wishing to hoping is only the first step. This movement begins a cycle of growth, increased hope, more growth, leading to contagious hope. Because when hope rises in our communities―everything changes.

Assessing Your Own Current Level of HOPE

Directions: Read each item carefully. Give yourself a score of 1-5 points based on the following: Strongly Disagree (1 point); Disagree (2 points); Neutral (3 points); Agree (4 points); Strongly Agree (5 points)

1. My future will be better than the present. ___ points
2. I have the power to make my future better. ___ points
3. I am excited about at least one thing in my future. ___ points
4. I see many paths to my goals. ___ points
5. The paths to my important goals are free of obstacles. ___ points

Score Questions 1-5 is your HOPE score. TOTAL ____

6. My present life circumstances are the only determinants of my future. ___ points
7. My past accomplishments are the only determinants of my future. ___ points

Score Questions 6-7 is your READINESS to HOPE score. TOTAL ___

8. I make others feel excited about the future. ___ points
9. I spread hope through modeling or support of others. ___ points
10. I spread hope through the way I live my life. ___ points

Score Question 8-10 is your HOPE CONTAGION score. TOTAL ___

Analyze your current level of HOPE

Questions 1-5 is your HOPE score (ranging from 5 -25).

• 5-15, it will take hard work and much practice to raise your score.
• 16-20, hope is an asset to you every day, but there are many strategies that can help you increase your hopefulness.
• 21+, you are a high-hope person whose thinking about the future is an asset.

Questions 6-7 is your READINESS to HOPE score (ranging from 2-10). The higher your score, the more you believe that your future is dominated by your past and present circumstances, and the less room you have for hope. Learn to expand your sense of personal freedom without denying the realistic constraints we all face.

Question 8-10 is your HOPE CONTAGION score (ranging from 3-15). If you scored above 12, you are a model for others and consciously boost the hope of those around you. A low score suggests that you would benefit from seeking out the support and companionship of high-hope people in your daily life. #Iamrural

Is there any good news about small towns? Do small towns have a future for our young people? Photo of youth at Eagle Butte, South Dakota via USDA

Guest post by Paula Jensen

I remember in 1997, just following the birth of my second son, when more than one elder in my community told me, “It is so sad that your children will never graduate from Langford High School like you did!”  Those comments told me that the local leaders were questioning my decision to return to my hometown and had lost all hope in their community and themselves. Well I am pleased to say, now 20 years later, that the prediction made by those folks has not come true. I could go on and on about the growth, development, and community pride that has erupted across Marshall County, South Dakota in opposition to those dire comments made two decades ago.

Echoing what Becky McCray says, pretty much all my life, I’ve been told that small towns are dying, drying up, and disappearing, and that there’s nothing we can do to change it. But what if, just once, there was some good news about rural communities? Guess what, there is! Big trends are moving in our favor:

Trend #1 – brain gain (youth returning home after getting education)

Trend #2 – changing retail dynamics (entrepreneurship is on the rise)

Trend #3 – new travel motivations (people love getting away from the city to visit)

Trend #4 – declining cost of distance (people can work from anywhere)

Trend #5 – creative placemaking (adding quality of life amenities to our towns)

During most of my years in Marshall County, the population has followed typical national trends. In 1970, Marshall County had 5,885 people; we hit our lowest population mark in 2009 at 4,160, which was a 30% decline in our county-wide population. However, since 2009 our county-wide population has reached 4,801, which shows a 13% gain in population.  Our trend line is moving upward and this is uncommon in rural places from a national perspective. In my day-to-day work across rural South Dakota I have observed pockets of growth in other rural communities, much like Marshall County. The commonalities I witness is that these unique rural places have strong leadership and care about what their small town will look like in 30 or 100 years from now.

I recently sat in on a webinar where Zachary Mannheimer was a featured speaker discussing Creative Placemaking: Economic Development for the Next Generation, co-sponsored by the Orton Family Foundation and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design.

What is creative placemaking, you ask? Zachary Mannheimer defined it like this, “Basically, it means, how you enrich a community through cultural and entrepreneurial ideas.”

For the most part he explained that it’s been done in urban areas, but not a lot has been done in rural areas.  He identified the future population trends that are emerging and how he sees the future of our country moving toward rural areas because of urban population growth and they are running out of space. Places that were once out in the sticks are going to be part of urban areas. This is going to be happening in the next 30 years. Is your small town prepared? If we aren’t prepared for the shift, we are going to lose out on potential social and economic growth. Rural city and county leaders, economic development corporations, and others need to begin planning to adapt now and create amenities that people are looking for or we will struggle to remain a vibrant rural community.

My County is on the right track with new development, entrepreneurship, strong philanthropy, inclining population, strong schools, recreation opportunities, and so much more. But we must all step up as local leaders to support improvements and growth. Our small towns don’t need to spend any more time in the past. Things will never go back to the way they used to be. We need to start from here and keep moving forward toward a bright future that provides opportunities for our youth to return and a place where new residents want to live and contribute. Enormous changes are coming our way in rural places and our future has never looked brighter. Let’s lead the way and extend the life expectancy of our community! #Iamrural

I’m not saying you can’t have historical murals. I’m just saying you can have future murals, too. Photo by Becky McCray, from Kingfisher, Oklahoma.

Every town needs a future mural, or a series of them.

Seems like every small town has a history-themed mural, but very few have a future-themed or even modern-style mural.

Many towns use old photos as displays, including in empty buildings. They do get people talking about what you used to have. But how are you engaging people in talking about what you will become? 

If every single display depicts your past, what is showing your future?

For every historic image, do a one-to-one match with a future image.

We spend enough time reminding people our town has a past. We don’t spend enough time reminding people our town has a future.

Update: Colfax did a future mural!

Colfax, Washington, took this idea and now it has a robot mural! It’s kind of a retro future take on American Gothic with robots set in their local landscape.

Photo by Sarah McKnight

Colfax also has a historic mural, showing the town as it was in the 1880’s. It did look a little lonely, surrounded by a big stretch of blank wall.

Photo by Becky McCray

Here’s their update. The blank wall now has a bright colorful design all the way across, framing the existing mural. They say the Palouse region of Washington State is the American Tuscany, full of rolling hills, farm fields and wildflowers. This mural really makes the most of that.

Photo by Sarah McKnight

Did you do a future mural? Send me pics!

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.

Even buildings used for junk storage can dress up their windows and contribute positively to your downtown. Photo by Becky McCray

Every small town has empty buildings downtown. Whether they are completely empty or just used for storage, they can make your downtown look vacant. If the building has windows, though, there’s an opportunity to dress them up a bit and maybe even promote another business at the same time.

In the picture above, a building used for storage is also being used to advertise another business that’s located across town. Here’s a previous display in the same windows:

Rather than leave the windows bare, the owner rented just the window display space to a retail store. Photo by Becky McCray

In Elkhart, Kansas, I saw two more good examples. For one, they made a custom banner to hang in the window and make it look like boxes in a display window:

The illusion of looking and seeing boxes stacked gives this ad more attention-getting power. Photo by Becky McCray

That’s definitely better than just empty windows or another vacant building.

In another set of windows, a local business used promotional items they already had on hand:

This satellite business used existing advertising materials (signs, stand-ups and banners) to fill the windows of this empty building. Photo by Becky McCray.

At first, I didn’t realize the building was vacant because the windows looked so lively.

In Hollis, Oklahoma, Betty Motley told me how a local group printed special banners to hang in windows. They found images online to use. This one is an empty building with an old-fashioned barber shop theme.

It’s all an illusion. There is no barbershop, no barber pole. That’s all on banners hung inside the windows.  Photo via Betty Motley

They even painted the door with barbershop lettering to complete the illusion. They also did another building using an antiques store as the theme.

Stacey Colledge from Central City, Iowa, sent me the photos below. They used historic photos of actual old-time businesses in their town, and printed them on static cling material so they can be moved when a building gets rented. A total of 9 has cost them about $2,000, she said.

Volunteers proudly pose with one of their historic photo window clings. Photo via Stacey Colledge

Not only did they put the window clings up, they put out a welcome mat, too! Photo via Stacey Colledge

Look into the future

So far, we’ve seen windows that featured businesses from the past and present, but what about businesses from the future? You know your town has a past, but do you spend enough time reminding people that your town has a future?

Here’s one town that did. Longview, Texas, used a window decal to show a vision of the building occupied by a future business.

This building would make a great boutique hardware store! Photo via Kevin Green, News-Journal Photo.

Read more about this one at the Longview News-Journal.

Window displays don’t have to be all business. They could be creative, too. Renton, Washington, did a series of window displays featuring a fairy tale theme.

Art is a smart way to dress up windows of empty buildings. Photo via Tory Franklin

Read more about it at the Renton Reporter.

Filling Your Empty Buildings

You don’t have to stop with decorating the windows. You can actually fill empty buildings with business, no matter how small your town is. Join Deb Brown and me for a 2-part webinar on Filling Empty Buildings at SaveYour.Town. The deadline to register is June 19, 2018.