PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lichter, Daniel T.
AU  - Johnson, Kenneth M.
TI  - Depopulation, Deaths, Diversity, and Deprivation: The 4Ds of Rural Population Change
AID  - 10.7758/RSF.2025.11.2.05
DP  - 2025 Jan 01
TA  - RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
PG  - 88--114
VI  - 11
IP  - 2
4099  - http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/11/2/88.short
4100  - http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/11/2/88.full
AB  - This article uses recently released data from the 2020 Census, along with earlier censuses, to document the geographic spread of several signature dimensions of rural demographic change over the past three decades. These include depopulation, deaths, diversity, and deprivation—the 4Ds—which are now reshaping rural America, perhaps as never before. Rural America is at a crossroads. Since 1990, nonmetro counties have diverged along two tracks, one marked by population growth and renewal, the other by stagnation and lagging economic growth. We show that urbanization is a marker of rural demographic success, and that many nonmetro counties have been left behind in today’s metropolitan and global economy.