ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of rural impoverization in New York, the creation of more and worse rural poverty on top of that which already existed, is the result of a complex interweaving of several different forces and changes that are part of nationwide trends. Except for rural counties within the sphere of strong urban economies, the decade of the 1980s has brought either impoverization in place, outward dispersion of poverty from metropolitan areas, or some combination of the two, keeping some rural counties poor. Similar patterns appear to be operating in other rural areas of the United States as well. In the Appalachian region, rural counties that were desperately poor in the 1960s have diverged markedly: Some of those located close to a metropolitan area have been transformed out of poverty, whereas more remote counties have been unable to make sustained improvement. Several specific causes of worsening rural poverty have been identified through local-level research in rural counties of New York State.
