Pew Research released a major rural vs urban study, and most of the positive trends for rural places are being overlooked in the headlines.

I’m going to give you the bullet points here, and you can read more of my thoughts at SmallBizSurvival.com. 

• Way more people prefer rural than prefer urban, and the gap is growing.
• Way more people prefer rural than actually live in rural areas now.
• This aligns with previous studies of rural living preferences: There’s pent up demand for people to move to rural. 

City people want to move to the suburbs. 

Suburbanites want to move to rural. 

Rural people want to stay rural. 

(now THAT’s a headline)

• The pandemic didn’t increase overall preference for rural living, but it did increase individual motivation to move to a small town now.
• More urban people rated the pandemic effects as major.
• Urban people worried more about housing and drug abuse.
• Rural people were more worried by access to doctors and hospitals and high speed internet.
• Rural to urban, we want the same things in a community.
• The number one ranked factor is a community that is a good place to raise children. 

(Want to see how I came to my conclusions? See my analysis at SmallBizSurvival.com)

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.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you read the study? What do you think is being missed?

Keep shaping the future of your town,
Becky

P.S. not a member yet? Check out the latest video on using Art to build community and fairness