ABSTRACT
A common regional division for understanding the development pattern of the United States is that of rural and urban. This chapter discusses the terms nonmetropolitan and metropolitan that are often used interchangeably with rural and urban. It examines whether and how overall industrial restructuring at the national level has differentially affected full-time workers in rural and urban areas, using the nine-sector production classification. The earnings distribution among part-time rural workers changed very little between 1967 and 1987. Lower earners continued to be a much higher proportion of the rural than the urban distribution. However, the differences between the sizes of the rural and urban lower segments narrowed as a result of a downward shift among urban earners. For more than a decade, the primary focus of economic development policy and practice has been the creation of high-technology industry and jobs.
