Population Change in Nonmetropolitan Cities and Towns

Patterns of population change between 1950-60 and 1960-70 are analyzed for U.S. nonmetropolitan incorporated cities and towns. Ranging in size from less than 100 up to 50,000 population, they included over 30 million people in 1970, or about one-half of the total population living outside metropolitan areas. For this study, a constant geographic boundary is maintained and the research relates to places outside metropolitan areas as defined in 1963. Variations in population growth are examined by size groupings and other variables such as regional location, presence of an interstate highway, distance from a metropolitan central city, and annexation. Results from both the 1950's and 1960's indicate that any general view of small towns as declining or dying is grossly inaccurate. Places in nonmetropolitan areas grew in population 14 percent in 1950-60 and 10 percent in 1960-70; this rate of growth was less rapid than the metropolitan sector, but more rapid than the nonmetropolitan population outside incorporated places. There were growing and declining towns in all size classes, but only the very smallest of village classes witnessed population loss more commonly than growth in the 1960-70 decade.