What is rural?

1. What is rural? “The problem of defining "rural" is not new. People know when they are rural, but such perception does not satisfy demographers, policymakers, or educational researchers. After all, difficult policy decisions have to be made and resources have to be allocated on some quantifiable basis. Numbers, however, miss the essence of what it means to be rural, and seldom satisfy those on the receiving end of the definition. Rural people know that rural Maine is not like rural Texas, which in turn is not like rural Georgia or Alaska. “ Source: http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-929/concept.htm

4. SBA Definition of a “Small Business” • 500 employees for most manufacturing and mining industries • 100 employees for all wholesale trade industries Source: http://www.sba.gov/size/indexfaqs.html

5. Persons Per Square Mile (2000)

6. http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/EIB4/EIB4.pdf

7. Rural Wisdom

8. Growing Up “On the Farm” “When I graduated eight grade from a Wisconsin one-room country school, I looked forward to attending high school in Wild Rose, some four miles from our farm. I suspect it was during the first few weeks in high school that I discovered, firsthand, the differences between city kids and country kids. We country kids learned quickly that we were supposedly inferior to the more sophisticated high school freshmen who had grown up in town”.

9. Nucor Steel “Nucor built its entire system on the idea that you can teach farmers how to make steel, but you can’t teach a farmer work ethic to people who don’t have it in the first place. So instead of setting up mills in traditional steel towns like Pittsburgh and Gary, it located its plants in places full of real farmers who go to bed early, rise at dawn, and get right to work without fanfare.”

10. Southwest Wisconsin • How many of you grew up on a farm? • How many of you have visited a farm in the last year?

12. The Regional Village • Robert Dick, UWEX, 1992 Source: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/documents/regional_village.pdf

14. Rural America at a Glance • http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB4/

15. Who has created a definition of “rural” • The U.S. Census Bureau • Office of Management and Budget • Economic Research Service Source: • http://www.raconline.org/info_guides/ruraldef/ruraldeffaq.php#major

16. In Iowa County Wisconsin (Home of Lands End) 4,007 workers commute into Iowa County to work. Of the 12,467 employed Iowa County residents, how many travel outside the county to work? 439 1,110 2,344 4,547

17. 11,927 -7,920 =4,007 Source:www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/CommunityIndicators_workerflow.htm

18. % Change in Residents Employed Locally (1990-2000)

19. Importers/Exporters of Jobs (# of jobs in the county - # of residents employed, divided by residents that are employed).

20. Commute Time (minutes)

21. What are the Community Impacts of Commuting? • Where do commuters do their shopping? • What is the expense of commuting? • How much time is spent commuting that could have been spent on income earning activities, or community and family building activities? • What is the environmental impact and transportation impact of commuters?

22. Contact Information: Your County UW Extension Office (Community Resource Development Educator) Center for Community Economic Development 610 Langdon Street, Madison, WI 53703 http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/ Andy Lewis 608-263-1432 ablewis@wisc.edu

23. Recommended Reading: Community Indicators, Center For Community Economic Development, University of Wisconsin Extension, http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/indicate.html Cultural Map of Wisconsin, Woodward, Ostergren, Brouwer, Hoelscher, Hane, University of Wisconsin Press, http://sco.wisc.edu/pubs/maps_pubs.php#cultural Wisconsin’s Past and Present, A Historical Atlas, The Wisconsin Cartographers’ Guild