Reversing Metropolitan Concentration as an Economic Issue

Abstract

The author examines the forces and problems underlying one of the central phenomena of our times. For the first time in almost one hundred years, rural counties in almost all parts of the U.S. are experiencing net in-migration. And for the first time ever, Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas are experiencing in significant numbers actual population losses. Leven argues that this “metropolitan turnaround” is an outcome primarily of technologically-based changes in the economies of scale and agglomeration, with some reenforcement from prevailing social values. Understanding the economic organization and functions of the “emerging metropolis” are essential to the development of governmental policy.