CALVIN L. BEALE In considering how to introduce the subject of rural population change in st the 21 Century, I ?nd myself re?ecting on my own experience as a demographer for the U. S. Department of Agriculture. When I arrived at the Department, the post-World War II modernization of farming was well under way. Each year, my colleague Gladys Bowles and I had the unpopular task of announcing how much the farm population had decreased in the prior year. It was hard to say that the phenomenon was someone s fault. Dramatic reductions in labor requirements per unit of agricultural output were...

This book contains the latest research on social and economic trends occurring in rural America. It provides a unique focus on rural demography and the interaction between population dynamics and local social and economic change. It is also the first volume on rural population that exploits data from Census 2000

The book highlights major themes transforming contemporary rural areas and each is examined with an expanded overview and case study.