Search Results
Discussion Paper
Intersecting Costs: Housing and Transportation in the Rural Fifth District
Our recent issue of Econ Focus covered a number of challenges facing small towns and rural areas, including the need for affordable, quality housing for low- and middle-income households. Despite typically lower housing costs in rural areas compared to urban areas, nearly four out of 10 low- and middle-income households in the rural Fifth District are housing cost burdened, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.Yet, access to housing is only part of the bigger story of households’ access to jobs, services, and amenities. Transportation also looms large. Housing ...
Newsletter
What is driving the differences in inflation across U.S. regions?
In this article, we explore differences in inflation dynamics across U.S. regions. Looking independently at the impact of consumption patterns and inflation by expenditure categories, we find that recent gaps across regions have existed largely because of different regional inflation rates for the housing category. Yet we also find that overall inflation is very highly correlated across regions.
Discussion Paper
Locally Owned: Do Local Business Ownership and Size Matter for Local Economic Well-being?
The concept of “economic gardening”—supporting locally owned businesses over nonlocally owned businesses and small businesses over large ones—has gained traction as a means of economic development since the 1980s. However, there is no definitive evidence for or against this prolocal business view. Therefore, I am using a rich U.S. county-level data set to obtain a statistical characterization of the relationship between local-based entrepreneurship and county economic performance for the period 2000–2009. I investigate the importance of the size of locally based businesses relative ...
Discussion Paper
Increasing Rural Capacity: Ways Intermediaries Can Contribute
Intermediary organizations provide a wide range of services that can help rural and small-town communities (no matter how we define rural or small town) to improve regional outcomes. Intermediaries are place-based, which means that they focus on a specific community or geography. They can operate at a local, regional, state, or multistate level and act as conveners of other organizations. In addition, they can serve as a link between local organizations and state or national resources.
Discussion Paper
Farming Creates Value and Employment for Rural Areas
From peanut farms in Virginia to cotton fields in South Carolina, open land lends itself to agricultural production. And, by definition, rural areas have more open land.1 The question is: Just how important is farming to rural areas?The importance of agriculture to the Fifth District's economy can be assessed through its total production value, the number of jobs it provides, and the income it generates for rural farmers. In many rural areas, farming accounts for a large share of production. Nationally, agriculture production accounts for about 1 percent of total gross domestic product (GDP). ...
Briefing
Commuting Patterns and Characteristics of Fifth District Counties
This article extends our previous work on the categorization of counties in the Fifth District based on their economic connectivity. Using commuting patterns to proxy for connectivity, we group counties into four categories. We next compare our classification with the USDA/ERS RUCC classification system. Finally, we characterize each category using different socioeconomic indicators. We claim that the information conveyed by this study is relevant when designing regionally targeted policies.
Discussion Paper
Are Labor Shortages in Small Cities and Rural Areas Worse Than Urban Ones?
In the past, the Richmond Fed has reported about the difficulty of businesses finding workers with the right skills. In conversations with business leaders across the Fifth District, we have heard about labor availability challenges across all geographies: in large urban centers, small cities, and rural areas. This post examines how labor availability differs between small cities and rural areas versus large urban centers. We find that the COVID-19 pandemic made it harder for firms in small cities and rural areas to find workers compared to firms in urban areas. Perhaps because of the ...
Briefing
Aging and declining populations in northern New England: is there a role for immigration?
In hundreds of communities across northern New England, the population is aging rapidly and becoming smaller. The entire country is aging, but northern New England stands out: Among the populations of all US states, those of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have the top-three highest median ages, respectively. The situation is even more extreme in northern New England?s rural counties, where the populations of the smallest towns generally are substantially older than those of the rest of the region. These communities also have seen the slowest, or even negative, population growth over the ...
Briefing
President's Message: A Unique Moment for Small Towns
Every month, I visit small towns and hear from business and community leaders about what's working, what's not working, and what they need. In my previous column, I looked at the key elements I've seen in every small town that has made major progress toward revitalization: a story, regional cooperation, and dedicated funding, all tied together by "scrappiness." (See "Making It Work," Econ Focus, First Quarter 2022.) Now, I'd like to take a deeper dive into the issue of funding, because money is the one critical constraint every community faces, across every issue.
Journal Article
Features: The Philanthropy Gap in Rural America
Warsaw, Va., is well positioned to welcome visitors to Virginia's Northern Neck, the northernmost of three peninsulas jutting out into the Chesapeake Bay. Travelers from Richmond and parts farther west enter the peninsula via a bridge over the Rappahannock River and quickly find themselves in Warsaw's downtown, where they are greeted by colorful storefronts and charming brick sidewalks. But just a few years ago, they would have seen something very different: abandoned buildings, cracked sidewalks that dated back to the Great Depression, and streets that regularly flooded due to poor ...