Estimating the Relative Rurality of U.S. Counties

In context of the phrase “Rural Development”, so much a part of the current vocabulary of social scientists, the term ‘rural’ is often poorly defined and loosely used. Partly because of the great diversity in definitions of rural, both expressed and implied, a coherent and comprehensive rural development literature has not emerged. Obviously, rural development refers to the development of whatever is rural. The aim of this paper is to deal only with the question of what is rural, leaving the matter of what consitutes development to other writers.