摘要：Demographers lament the difficulty of predicting where population trends are heading at anytime, butespecially at this point in the decennial census cycle, as we find ourselves in the shadow of the 2000census. Hampered by a diminished view of where we have been (much less where we are going), weeagerly await the detailed demographic, housing, social, and economic information that is only availableonce every 10 years. What we do know from population estimates and economic data that are availablebetween censuses is that, for most of the past decade, rural America has been in a period of growth andprosperity. More people are moving in from urban centers than are moving out. Falling unemployment,growing per capita incomes, and rising weekly earnings for rural workers indicate the continuation of apositive economic climate, though recently employment and population growth have been slowingdown
