Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333

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Journal of Rural Studies

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud

Community assets and relative rurality index: A multi-dimensional measure

of rurality
Katherine S. Nelson a, *, 1, Tuan D. Nguyen b, 1
a
Department of Geography & Geospatial Sciences, Kansas State University, 1002 Seaton Hall, Kansas State University, 920 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Manhattan,
KS, 66506-2904, USA
b
College of Education, Kansas State University, 261 Bluemont Hall, 1114 Mid-Campus Drive, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Rurality is often viewed as presenting challenges to community sustainability, well-being, and equity. To address
Rurality the unique challenges of rural areas, policies and practices have been designed specifically for application in
Measure of rurality places designated as “rural”. Yet what is “rural”? Some recent measures of rurality have gone beyond a
Services
dichotomous rural-urban divide conceptualization of rural communities. However, most measures still empha­
Amenities
Block group
size proximity to metropolitan areas and population density as the primary components of rurality. Few studies
consider the critical role that services and amenities play in the life of a community. We suggest a new measure
based on the concept of sustainable development that integrates measures of environmental, social, and eco­
nomic resources. We present the Community Assets and Relative Rurality index for census block-groups in the
coterminous United States and illustrate how this measure is consistent with existing measures of rurality yet
offers additional insight into issues of sustainable rural development.

The measure of rurality is important for researchers and policy­
makers as it influences the identification of at-need populations and
study populations; how outcomes of policies, environmental changes,
and social disturbance are evaluated; and the results of these evalua­
tions. Consequently, measures of rurality influence the distribution of
funding and other aid across nations and states. From a policy stand­
point, the concerns associated with rurality are typically related to issues
of community sustainability, well-being, equity and access (Brown and
Cromartie, 2017; Minore et al., 2008). From an environmental sustain­
ability approach, rural areas are associated with issues of land and water
resource exploitation and subsequent human and environmental health
outcomes (Brown et al., 2005; Chen et al., 2018). In education, rural
education is associated with concerns regarding access to schooling, the
recruitment and retention of teachers, and financial support of schools
(Crouch and Nguyen, 2021; Nguyen, 2020; Sher, 2019). In economic
development, job growth, retention and diversification, labor force
availability and skills, as well as tax base and incomes are concerns
frequently associated with rural areas (Ellis and Biggs, 2001; Galluzzo,
2018). In particular, there have long been concerns that highly rural
counties in the U.S. may be marginalized, especially in economic
development, resulting in recognition that policymakers need to be
aware of rural development policies that take this issue into account (Li
et al., 2015). In the healthcare industry, there are many concerns with
respect to the qualifications and quantity of healthcare workers, access
to healthcare facilities, and the health of people in rural communities
(Higgs, 1999; Inagami et al., 2016; Kulig et al., 2008; Mao et al., 2015;
Zhao et al., 2019). During the COVID-19 pandemic, research finds the
effects of the pandemic on rural life are severe, with significant negative
effects on mental and physical health, access to healthcare, life satis­
faction, economic outlook, and unemployment (Henning-Smith, 2020;
Mueller et al., 2021). While these issues are not restricted to rural areas,
prior work suggests rural areas tend to experience these issues more
severely than urban areas (Berenguer et al., 2005; Ellis and Biggs, 2001).
Moreover, as rural places are the backbone of the national economy,
providing the raw materials and resources that fuel trade and industry,
and as they represent the lion’s share of the land area in the U.S. (Brown
et al., 2005; Henderson, 2002), how rurality is defined and measured
matters greatly for policy and practice and consequently for the people
who live in these communities and the rest of society.
Therefore, we propose a new measure that considers the underlying
physical infrastructure of communities that directly reflects (dis)ad­
vantages in the provisioning of services and amenities (henceforth,

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ksnelson@ksu.edu (K.S. Nelson).
1
Equal contribution.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.12.025
Received 13 July 2022; Received in revised form 18 November 2022; Accepted 12 December 2022
Available online 21 December 2022
0743-0167/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
K.S. Nelson and T.D. Nguyen
assets). We suggest that provisioning of assets is a determinant of
community (dis)advantages and therefore provides a way of examining
current conditions in these communities and also improves under­
standing of the future potential for these communities to reduce their
disadvantages by leveraging existing infrastructure. Drawing from the
concept of sustainable development, the proposed measure integrates
natural resources, social, and economic infrastructure resources of local
areas with the potential to contribute to inclusive well-being (Matson
et al., 2016). This new index of rurality called Community Assets and
Relative Rurality (CARR) consists of the primary components of previ­
ous indices and additional measures of assets available in an area. The
measure merges traditional notions of rurality with the idea of infra­
structure development deficits, characterizing variation in “rural”
spaces and “urban” spaces according to population and remoteness as
well as the presence of community assets that support provisioning of
resources key to supporting well-being and community persistence. We
develop this continuous measure for the coterminous U.S. at a high,
block-group, spatial resolution.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we
briefly provide the background on how measures of rurality have been
conceptualized and the importance of rural sustainability with regards
to measures of rurality. Then we discuss the overaching framework for
the proposed CARR index and discuss its advantages and limitations.
After that, we provide the basic descriptive data about the CARR index
and discuss the spatial pattern of CARR across the U.S. We select and
discuss several cases that contrast the differences between the CARR
index and current measures of rurality. Lastly, we discuss our results, the
implications for policy and practice, and directions of future research.
1. Literature review
1.1. Conceptualizing measures of rurality
For nearly a century, researchers have been trying to define rurality
with more precision and practical use, and consequently, rurality has
been numerously defined (Mountrakis et al., 2005; Nelson et al., 2021;
Woods and Heley, 2017).2 Originally, rurality was used as a way to
define a space, physical and otherwise, clearly delineated from
urban-industrial areas (Minore et al., 2008). For practical purposes,
most measures of rurality define the rural-urban divide based on pop­
ulation density and size, in part because population size and density
information are readily available and easy to apply (Brown and Cro­
martie, 2017; Minore et al., 2008; United Nations, 1999). For instance,
the most basic definition of a rural area is a non-urban area, where urban
is based on population density in an enclosed space (Minore et al.,
2008). Similarly, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
defines rurality in terms of metropolitan areas as the counties or clusters
of counties containing at least one urban area with a population of at
least 50,000 (U.S. Dept. Of Health & Human Services, 2022).
Recognizing the limitations of population variables to represent
diverse challenges of rural life, measures of rurality emerging in recent
years have attempted to go beyond a dichotomous rural/urban divide or
threshold-based conception of rural communities. Measures that expand
on a simple population-based rural-urban dichotomy, such as the Rural-
Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC) and the Urban Influence Codes (UIC),
have considered total urban population, size of largest city, and
remoteness in terms of adjacency to metro areas (Minore et al., 2008;
Wunderlich and Rapporteur, 2016). Relatedly, other measures, such as
the Rural-Urban Commuting Area Codes (RUCA) and the Frontier and
Remote Codes (FAR), have also included commuting time (Wunderlich
and Rapporteur, 2016). One of the most recent proposed indices of
rurality is the Relative Rurality Index (RRI), which is based on the size of
2
Many other works have detailed the construction and development of
measures of rurality (see Cloke, 2006; Cloke et al., 2006).
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Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333
the area, the population density, distance from metropolitan areas, and
the built-up percent of the area (Waldorf, 2006; Waldorf and Kim,
2015). However, these measures still rely heavily on remoteness and
population density as the primary components of rurality.
Many have argued that, in post-industrial societies, rurality must be
multi-dimensional to include demographic, economic, institutional, and
sociocultural measures (Brown and Cromartie, 2002; Lichter and Brown,
2011; Minore et al., 2008; Mountrakis et al., 2005). Rurality as a concept
is more than just how physically isolated people are from others. For
instance, Brown and Cromartie (2017) argue the natural environment is
a component of rurality as well as the size of the local economy, the
autonomy of the local economy, the public sector capacity, the beliefs
and values of the local population, and the diversity of the population.
Others argue existing measures may mask significant heterogeneity and
problems within rural populations, particularly for low-income resi­
dents, minority populations, and seniors (Hall et al., 2006; Minore et al.,
2008). Relatedly, Kulig et al. (2008) find community characteristics, and
health and human resources are also key components of rurality and
remoteness, but that not everything associated with rural living is
considered negative or disadvantaged. In their study, they find the idea
of “country living” and more “personal” interpersonal interactions are
more associated with rural settings and are considered positive char­
acteristics that separate rural from urban settings.
1.2. Rural sustainability and measures of rurality
Within the literature on rural development, it has been acknowl­
edged that service infrastructure is critical for development as it allows
for expansion and maintenance of population and the growth of the
economic base of a community (Nirandjan et al., 2022). Ashley and
Maxwell (2001) note rural spaces tend to not only be associated with
long distances and high transaction costs but also with poor infrastruc­
ture. Investment in transportation, communication, education, and
health infrastructure and development of recreational amenities have
also been suggested as strategies to support rural non-farm economies.
Relatedly, infrastructure providing benefits to under-served commu­
nities, particularly infrastructure that supports essential services like
energy, water, and transportation services, is also seen as a key aspect of
sustainable and inclusive development (Nirandjan et al., 2022; Ramos
and Uitermark, 2021; Siddiqi and Collins, 2017). While increased pop­
ulation and income also drive further development, we suggest the
presence of some initial infrastructure development is a prerequisite for
achieving a stable community with high levels of well-being. This initial
development of physical infrastructure provides a level of
semi-permanence that can “lock-in” sociotechnical systems with the
potential to benefit communities’ well-being and persistence. While the
term “sociotechnical lock-in” often has a negative connotation, and it is
certainly true that lock-in of highly specialized systems can hurt com­
munities in the long run (Cairns, 2014; Meynard et al., 2018), we suggest
that a moderate degree of lock-in (particularly of basic or generalizable
services) can have a positive effect on small, rural communities by
enhancing stability.
While others argue services and amenities should be included as part
of the measure of rurality (Caschili et al., 2015; Mountrakis et al., 2005;
Scottish Executive, 2006), few measures of rurality have explicitly
included service and amenity factors (Nelson et al., 2021). One notable
exception is recent work by the Urban Institute (Gold et al., 2021) that
uses information on infrastructure, educational and cultural facilities,
healthcare facilities, and resource extraction sites with demographic
variables to develop a typology of rural census tracts in the U.S. Given
the critical roles services and amenities play in the life of a community,
and the disadvantages inherent to areas with little to no access to these
assets (Agarwal et al., 2009; Woods and Heley, 2017), additional work
considering these dimensions is needed. While the work by the Urban
Institute is a positive step, additional considerations regarding spatial
resolution, continuous approaches, and services and amenities should be
K.S. Nelson and T.D. Nguyen
explored.
The spatial resolution of measures of rurality has been a frequently
noted challenge for most commonly used measures (Nelson et al., 2021;
Uhl et al., 2022). Most measures employ relatively course spatial units
such as counties (e.g. RUCC, RRI). This spatial coarseness can mask
heterogeneity within counties providing rurality rankings that are not
reflective of all communities in a county. Recognizing this challenge,
higher spatial resolution measures at the census tract scale in the U.S.
(Doogan et al., 2018) or census meshblocks in New Zealand (Zhao et al.,
2019) have been developed. However, in the U.S. census tracts can still
mask significant variation across space, particularly in rural areas where
tracts tend to have larger areas due to their small population size.
1.3. Framework for a community assets-based rurality measure
The proposed CARR index is more comprehensive than previous
indices as it comprises multiple measures of three key categories that
arguably are central to rurality and how people experience it. These
three categories are services, amenities, and relative rurality. Services
consist of transportation infrastructure, agriculture and natural re­
sources processing facilities, energy infrastructure, data and cellular
infrastructure, schools, banks, health services, supermarkets, and the
like. Amenities include outdoor activities, entertainment, restaurants,
gyms and sports centers, places of worship, and shopping centers.
Relative rurality is measured by population size and density, land use
development, and remoteness. Specific components of each category,
along with measurement scales, are detailed in the Supporting Infor­
mation in Table S1.
Rurality may also encompass demographic and sociocultural mea­
sures. However, we recognize no single measure of rurality, even a
multi-dimensional measure, can realistically account for all measures
that may be of interest to everyone (Woods and Heley, 2017). Moreover,
we view this proposed measure of rurality as a practical tool policy­
makers, researchers, and governmental agencies may utilize to study the
relationship between rurality and important socioeconomic outcomes
such as economic development or educational attainment and to target
limited resources in areas to affect substantial changes (Agarwal et al.,
2009; Argent, 2008; Gallant and Robinson, 2011; Waldorf, 2006). In
short, though we recognize the complexity of rurality as a concept, we
focus on fundamental components of rurality from a sustainable rural
development perspective, particularly those components critical to
modern lives and that can be more easily influenced or acted upon
(Woods and Heley, 2017).
While demographic characteristics and sociocultural values are also
important to the rural space, they can be challenging to directly act upon
by interventions and governmental actions. For example, to address
disparities in food access across racial categories, a demographic char­
acteristic, a common intervention is to create a food bank (a service
associated with a piece of built infrastructure) (FeedingAmerica, 2022).
Moreover, in a post-industrial society, the economy and economic op­
portunities are no longer solely based on how far things are from urban
areas, and research has begun to examine how access to services such as
broadband can bring jobs to rural communities (Galloway, 2007;
Townsend et al., 2013). As such, we view socioeconomic indicators as
outcomes that may be associated with rurality, but that are not a
fundamental component of rurality. Hence, we focus on services and
amenities as core components of rurality in addition to issues of popu­
lation density and remoteness.
Services, such as supermarkets, general practitioner services,
schools, banks and post offices, are critical to our daily lives and their
absence severely limits what we can access and what we are able to do.
Similarly, while amenities may not be considered critical to daily lives
for some, they are central to what many consider modern life (e.g.,
entertainment, restaurants). Limited access to many services and ame­
nities is highly linked to rural communities and may negatively influ­
ence important outcomes such as educational attainment, healthcare
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Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333
availability, or migration (Kulig et al., 2008; Minore et al., 2008;
Mountrakis et al., 2005; Roscigno and Crowle, 2001). For instance, the
Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (Scottish Executive, 2006) con­
siders limited access to essential services as part of the “deprivation” of
rural communities, and this index provides a measure of the extent to
which rural communities have better or worse access to services. In
particular, in terms of healthcare, rural communities face several critical
issues such as geographical remoteness, topographical features hinder­
ing physical access to healthcare, and difficulties in recruiting and
retaining healthcare workers due to limited access to amenities (NRHA,
2015; NRHA, 2017; Baker et al., 2011). Moreover, people also perceive
limited access to services and amenities to be associated with rural
communities, and costs in services tend to be higher in rural areas,
further adding to their challenges (Kulig et al., 2008). In sum, services
and amenities are critical to rural communities, and the proposed CARR
index builds upon existing measures of rurality by including them as part
of its construct. While we are not the first to suggest that services and
amenities be considered in measures of rurality, we are the first to pull
together a rich and comprehensive set of open data sources of services
and amenities at a granular scale for the construction of a measure of
rurality.
While we calculate CARR for all block-groups in the U.S., we focus
our analysis of CARR on only block-groups with non-zero population in
the 2019 U.S. American Community Survey as obtained from the Na­
tional Historical Geographic Information System (NHGIS) database
(Manson et al., 2019). We first describe the range and spatial patterning
of CARR, including descriptions of within state and within county het­
erogeneity. We then examine how CARR compares to common U.S.
federal definitions of rurality, including RUCC (USDA, 2013), RUCA
(USDA, 2010), and U.S. census designated urbanized areas (U.S. Census
Bureau, 2019) and describe cases where CARR provides contrasting
results with these established definitions.
2. Data and methods
2.1. Data sources and types
To develop a continuous operationalizable multi-dimensional mea­
sure of rurality, we obtained spatial data on community services, ame­
nities, and relative rurality from national-scale publicly-accessible
databases. To provide the greatest feasible level of spatial detail for
services and amenities, exact georeferenced locations (unit-scale) were
prioritized over aggregated data. Wherever available, official U.S. fed­
eral datasets, such as those found at the Homeland Infrastructure
Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD) Open Data portal or U.S. Census Bureau,
were obtained. These federal datasets were supplemented with national
extracts from the community-driven, global open data project, Open
Street Map (OSM) (Haklay and Weber, 2008). OSM data extracts for the
entire U.S. were carried out in R using the package osmdata (Padgham
et al., 2017). Relative rurality components, such as population esti­
mates, were obtained using aggregated census block-group data from
the 2019 U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 5-year
estimates as provided by the National Historical Geographic Informa­
tion System (NHGIS) database (Manson et al., 2019).
Measures of both availability and accessibility were constructed for
all services and amenities at block-group scale. We consider availability
as the existence or area-based density of an asset and accessibility as the
shortest distance to an asset. These two dimensions of asset provisioning
represent the presence of assets, which is necessary but not sufficient to
ensure asset use, and proximity to the assets, which has been shown to
influence utilization of, for example, health, transportation, and green­
space resources (Estabrooks et al., 2003; Gebremariam et al., 2017;
Ozmen-Ertekin et al., 2007).
The measures of availability provide an indication of the supply of
assets at the disposal of communities without considering their distri­
bution across a block-group or the ease or convenience with which they
K.S. Nelson and T.D. Nguyen
may be accessed. Simply considering availability can underrepresent
actual provisioning and use of resources in some block-groups without
an asset within its boundaries, but where residents may have convenient
access to an asset that is located in a neighboring block-group. There­
fore, an accessibility measure was calculated for each unit-level asset.
Accessibility was calculated as the shortest straight-line (Euclidean)
distance from the centroid of a block-group to an asset. Larger values of
the accessibility measure indicate that an asset is located far from a
block-group and hence is less convenient to reach and make use of.
The measure of relative rurality based on distance was calculated as
the shortest straight-line (Euclidean) distance from the centroid of a
block-group to the nearest major metropolitan area. The percent
developed area measure was calculated using the 2016 National Land
Cover Database (Dewitz, 2019) where areas classified as low intensity,
medium intensity, and high intensity in a block-group were considered
to be developed. Population-based measures are readily available as
aggregated data at the block-group scale from the U.S. Census Bureau.
All spatial analyses used to construct the CARR variables were con­
ducted in R using the sf and raster packages (Hijmans et al., 2015;
Pebesma, 2018).
Following the calculation of each measure a complete dataset of each
availability and accessibility measure for all types of services and
amenities and each relative rurality measure was compiled for all
220,334 block-groups in the United States. For more information, see
the Supporting Information.
2.1.1. Availability and accessibility factors
We constructed 70 availability variables, 70 accessibility variables,
and 4 measures of relative rurality. With so many variables for avail­
ability (likewise, accessibility), it was necessary to reduce the number of
variables contributing to this dimension and to eliminate non-
meaningful variables. As such, we employ factor analysis on the avail­
ability and accessibility measures independently and find one factor for
availability and three factors for accessibility. (See factor analysis sec­
tion in Supporting Information and Table S3, which lists the specific
variables and their loadings onto each factor.). We find a single factor for
availability where larger values indicate more urban areas with a high
density of services and amenities (Fig. S4).
In terms of accessibility, or how far away a service or amenity is
located, we have three distinct factors. The first accessibility factor in­
dicates that, for many communities, urban amenities such as arts cen­
ters, movie theaters, hardware stores, libraries, and restaurants, tend to
be located near each other or are similarly distant from block-groups.
Larger values of the first accessibility factor indicate lower access
(greater distance) to non-essential amenities and recreation/entertain­
ment opportunities, while smaller values indicate high accessibility that
is often associated with the urban core (Fig. S5). The second factor in­
cludes more essential services such as childcare centers, places of
worship, banks, fire stations, and schools, many of which are more
uniformly distributed across space as they are essential for meeting basic
needs. Larger values of the second accessibility factor indicate lower
access (greater distance) to standard/essential community services. The
spatial distribution of this factor suggests an association with more
suburban and residential areas (Fig. S6). The third factor consists of
places equidistant from both urban centers and natural resource
extraction areas, so some urban amenities and infrastructure and natural
resources are nearby. This third accessibility factor is spatially consistent
with peri-urban areas, and larger values indicate lower, but approxi­
mately equal, access to non-essential amenities and natural resource
extraction facilities (Fig. S7). In rough terms, we can think of these
accessibility factors as places that have access to urban amenities,
essential services, and peri-urban places.
2.1.2. Constructing the CARR index
With our construction of availability and accessibility factors and
four measures of relative rurality (population size, population density,
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Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333
distance to metro, and percent developed landcover) we have a total of
eight variables to construct the CARR index. Previously, a main con­
struction method is to use either factor analysis or linear combinations
of these components (Cloke, 2006; Mao et al., 2015; Nelson et al., 2021;
Smith and Parvin, 1975; Zhao et al., 2019). We apply both of these
approaches on the eight constructed variables. In terms of linear com­
binations, we could either use equal weighting of each of the three main
components (availability, accessibility, or relative rurality) or we could
give more weight to one set of components than another. Given that we
have no a priori reason to give more weight to one dimension over
another, we give equal weight to each of the three dimensions: avail­
ability, accessibility, and relative rurality.
Using factor analysis on the eight standardized variables suggests a
single factor with eigenvalue of 3.84. The factor loadings are all above
0.20 except for population size with a loading of 0.08. As such, we
construct a factor score using the seven standardized variables with
loadings of more than 0.20 to create our first CARR index, dropping
population size from the analysis. The Cronbach alpha of the final factor
is 0.85, indicating a very good fit. The loadings on availability, popu­
lation density, and percent developed land were negative, and the
loadings on the other four variables were positive, resulting in a scale
where higher scores indicate more remoteness and less access and
availability to assets. This CARR scale has a mean of zero, a standard
deviation of 0.696, a minimum-maximum of − 8.249 and 8.379, and is
approximately normally distributed. To make this scale more inter­
pretable, we rescale the minimum-maximum to 0 and 1, respectively,
where 0 represents very urban with extremely high availability and
accessibility to assets and 1 represents very remote and rural with
extremely low availability and accessibility to assets. This rescaled fac­
tor is our main CARR index with a mean of 0.496, a standard deviation
of 0.042, and a range from 0 to 1 inclusively (Fig. S1).
Next, we create a second CARR index by using an “across-compo­
nent” weighting scheme where we apply equal weights on each of the
three components of availability, accessibility, and relative rurality. To
make the two methods of factor analysis and linear combinations com­
parable, we opt to exclude population size from the linear combination.
The inclusion of the population variable does not substantively change
the results. Within each component, we also give each variable an equal
weight; availability gets a weight of one, each of the three accessibility
factors gets a weight of one third, and each of the relative rurality var­
iables gets a weight of one third. Specifically, we use the following
formula:
1
CARR = − Avail1 + (Access1 + Access2 + Access3 )
3
1( )
− Popdensity − Distmetro + Landpercdeveloped
3
We note that higher values of the availability factor, population
density, and percent land developed indicate more urban areas or hav­
ing more assets available, and as such, they are multiplied by negative
one so higher values for the index indicate more remoteness or having
less availability to assets. With this equal weighting scheme, the mean of
this linear combination index is 0, with a standard deviation of 2.0,
ranging from − 45.091 to 19.763. We also rescale this second CARR
index to have a range of 0–1 where 1 means most remote with the least
availability and accessibility to assets. The mean of the rescaled linear
combination index is 0.695 and the standard deviation is 0.032. This
second CARR measure is mostly normally distributed with a left skew
(Fig. S8).
To compare the two versions, we first examine their correlation.
They are correlated at 0.96, indicating high correlation and suggest that
either method creates a similar measure. We prefer the factor analysis
CARR measure for three reasons. First, factor analysis provides a more
robust statistical method that accounts for how the eight variables are
correlated with each other and how they vary in their contribution to the
final index, while equal weights explicitly assume that each variable
K.S. Nelson and T.D. Nguyen
within a component contributes the same amount.3 Second, the range of
the factor-score CARR index prior to rescaling is smaller and it is more
normally distributed than the equal-weight version. Third, when both
indices are rescaled to have a range of 0–1, the mean of the factor-score
CARR index is 0.496, which is nearly at the midpoint of 0 and 1, and is
only slightly skewed to the right, while the equal weight version’s mean
is 0.696 and is heavily skewed to the left. This difference in the means
and skewness would suggest that many more block-groups and counties
would be classified as urban and with high availability and accessibility
to assets with the equal-weights index relative to the factor-score index.
Furthermore, in practice, a mean value of about 0.5 provides a more
intuitive interpretation where values above the mean of the scale can be
generally seen as more “rural” and those below the mean as more
“urban”.
3. Results
The developed CARR index is a continuous multi-dimensional mea­
sure of rurality constructed from 143 variables extracted from publicly
available spatial datasets that accounts for availability and accessibility
of services and amenities as well as traditional metrics of relative
rurality such as remoteness and population density. Our preferred
version of this index ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 represents “very urban”
with extremely high availability and accessibility to services and ame­
nities and 1 represents “very rural” with extremely low availability and
accessibility to services and amenities. This distribution of the index is
approximately normal, with a mean of approximately 0.5 (0.496)
(Fig. S1). We note that we are not advocating for a label of “urban” or
“rural” using the mean as the threshold as doing so would collapse the
distribution of the index into just a binary measure. As this is a contin­
uous measure, it is more accurate to think of higher values of the index
as locales that have lower availability and accessibility to services and
amenities and for lower values of the index, more availability and
accessibility. However, having the mean of 0.50 provides a fortuitous
intuitive interpretation of index values, where values above the mean of
the scale can be generally seen as more “rural” and those below the mean
as more “urban.”
3.1. Spatial patterning
Generally, the pattern of CARR across the U.S. reflects patterns of
development, with large cities and densely populated areas having low
values and sparsely populated areas with smaller towns having larger
values (Fig. 1). The highest values of CARR are observed in the western
Great Plains region, interior of the Rocky Mountains, and in the arid
desert of Nevada and southeast California. The lowest values of CARR
are observed along the northeast coast of the U.S. in Maryland, New
York, and Massachusetts. Counties in the U.S. with the highest CARR
values do tend to occur in “stereotypical” rural areas such as the arid
mountain west, the wilderness of Montana, or small islands off the coasts
or in the Great Lakes. Relatedly, counties with low CARR scores tend to
be located in or near major metropolitan areas such as New York City,
Boston, and San Francisco.
The higher spatial resolution of CARR relative to other existing
measures of rurality highlights the heterogeneity present in provisioning
of services and amenities and relative rurality (Fig. 2). For example, New
York County, NY (Fig. 2a) contains more than 100 populated block-
groups with a minimum value of 0 and maximum value of 0.49.
Block-groups in this county with a low score tend to have very high
population density and mostly developed land cover with a very high
density of services and amenities, while block-groups with CARR scores
3
We also considered applying an “across-variable” weighting scheme where
equal weights of 1/7 are applied to each of the seven variables, and the results
are substantively similar to the “across-component” weighting scheme.
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Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333
Fig. 1. Spatial distribution of CARR. Values of CARR for block-groups across
the coterminous U.S.
near the middle of the range (near average for the entire country) tend to
have a relatively low density of services and amenities. In Nevada, Nye
County (Fig. 2b) is made up of ~20 block-groups with a CARR range of
0.53–0.99, where block-groups nearer to Las Vegas have relatively low
CARR scores and the highest CARR score in the entire US is observed in
the mountainous region of the county to the north of Las Vegas. In
contrast to the high variability counties in New York and Nevada where
a relatively smooth spatial gradient from low to high values of CARR is
seen, Ventura County near Santa Barbara, CA (Fig. S2) has a minimum
value of 0.45 and a max of 0.85, where the only value above 0.5 is found
in a single block-group on an island off the coast.
3.1.1. Differences and similarities with U.S. Census and USDA
When comparing CARR to the U.S. rural-urban census designation,
we find, as expected, rural designated areas tend to be associated with
higher CARR values (Fig. 3). While the average CARR value for rural
designated places is ~0.55 the full range is from ~0.47 to ~1 displaying
the great breadth of variation in provisioning of assets (services and
amenities) across “rural” places. Interestingly, while urban designated
areas tend to have lower CARR scores the average is just ~0.49 and the
complete range is from 0 to 0.8. While some of these “urban” designated
places are for block-groups in which only a small fraction of the block-
group lies within a census “urbanized area,” there are still large num­
ber of block-groups with a majority of area in an urbanized area with
relatively high CARR scores. Block-groups in which more than 50% of
the block-group area is within a census designated urban area have an
average CARR value of 0.48 with a range from 0 to 0.77. These locations
may have a relatively high population and a large amount of developed
land, yet few nearby services and amenities.
When compared to RUCC classification, we generally see, as the
RUCC classification tends towards more “rural” conditions, CARR value
generally increases (Fig. 4, See Table S2 for RUCC class descriptions.).
However, there is significant overlap in CARR across RUCC categories.
In particular, RUCC class-6 areas have an average CARR value of 0.54
that is lower (indicating more urban) than for the preceding class areas
which have an average CARR value of 0.55. This is likely due to counties
with RUCC class-6 being located adjacent to a metro area, and hence
having greater access to services and amenities despite their lower
population. Similarly, RUCC class-8 has an average CARR value of 0.56
while class-7 has an average CARR value of 0.57. This reversal of some
of the CARR values associated with what are generally considered to be
more rural categories reflects the greater emphasis of CARR on existing
community physical assets over population size. In addition, we observe
there are more block-groups in areas designated as more urban using
RUCC and that there is more variability in CARR values in these areas
than in areas designated as more rural using RUCC.
Similarly, we observe, as RUCA classification tends towards more
“rural” conditions, CARR values generally increase (Fig. 5). However,
K.S. Nelson and T.D. Nguyen
Fig. 2. Counties with large CARR ranges. (a) New York County, NY and (b) Nye County, NV.
there is even more significant overlap in CARR across RUCA categories.
In particular, RUCA classes 4, 6, 7, and 9 have average CARR values
lower than for preceding classes which are expected to be more “urban”.
The description of these RUCA categories (see Table S2) suggests, rela­
tive to the size and population density of the community, greater com­
munity assets are available in communities with low levels of
commuting outside the community. Stated otherwise, communities with
greater access to services and amenities are associated with reduced
commuting rates, presumably because greater options for employment,
schooling, and other resources are available within their community.
For example, small towns with low commuting (class 9), on average,
have nearly the same CARR as micropolitan areas with high commuting
(class 5). Trends in the number of block-groups classified as more urban
or rural using RUCA follow the same pattern as observed for RUCC, and
we generally observe a greater range of CARR values in RUCA urban
areas than in RUCA rural areas. This comparison again points to a broad
range of levels of provisioning of community resources even within
census tracts (which are, on average, ~27x times smaller than counties
but ~3 times larger than block-groups) classified as “urban”.
Note that while we expect development occurring since 2010 (when
the RUCA categories were developed) to be reflected in our CARR index
which uses more contemporary data, this would be expected to lead to
cases where areas classified as “more rural” according to RUCA have a
327
Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333
CARR value indicating more “urban” conditions creating a low value
outlier in our comparison of CARR and RUCA. While these cases
certainly do exist, the greater bulk of outliers tend to exist on the
opposite end of the CARR spectrum, where places categorized as “more
urban” by RUCA have a higher (more “rural”) CARR value.
3.1.2. Descriptive cases
We select and discuss several cases that contrast the differences be­
tween the CARR index and current measures of rurality. More specif­
ically, we select block-groups categorized as metro or urban by either
RUCC, RUCA or census that have the highest CARR index ratings, and
block-groups categorized as very rural by RUCC, RUCA or census that
have the lowest ratings on the CARR index.
First, we contrast cases where the CARR index for the block-group is
high, but it is categorized as urban or metro by RUCC, RUCA, or census.
The first example is block-group 300859400015 in Montana which has a
CARR score of 0.73 (recall that the mean for the US is ~0.5 with a
standard deviation of ~0.04) but is located in a census designated urban
area with nearly 100% of the block-group characterized as urban. This
CARR value reflects the large distance to a metropolitan area and rela­
tively high distances to amenities such as a community center, play­
ground, or movie theater and to some services such as emergency
medical service stations (Fig. 6). In this case while the CARR value
K.S. Nelson and T.D. Nguyen
Fig. 3. Distribution of CARR for census designated urban and rural areas.
Horizontal boxplots show the median value as a thick vertical line, the inter­
quartile range in the box, and the 95% confidence interval as whiskers. The
density of block-groups in each category (n) is displayed in the legend.
Fig. 4. Distribution of CARR across RUCC classes. Violin plots show the
distribution of CARR scores along the y-axis, where areas of greatest width
indicate a larger percentage of records with similar CARR values and vertical
lines indicate the full range of values observed. Count of block-groups in each
category (n) is provided along the x-axis.
contrasts with the census designation, it is largely consistent with RUCC
and RUCA classifications for this block-group in the moderately rural
class 7 category (Table S2). In another example where CARR contrasts
with census, RUCC, and RUCA classifications, block-group
360450608041 in Fort Drum, New York is census-designated urban
with ~95% urban area with RUCC class-3 and RUCA class-1, indicating
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Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333
Fig. 5. Distribution of CARR across RUCA classes. Violin plots showing the
distribution of CARR across RUCA classes with the count of block-groups in
each category (n). RUCA class 99 represents “unclassified” census tracts.
relatively urban conditions. However, the CARR for this block-group is
0.66 (more than three standard deviations above the mean) due to a low
density of community assets in the block-group and low access to
amenities such as libraries, museums, restaurants, and public parks
(Fig. S3).
In a different scenario, block-group 160739502003 on the edge of
Owyhee County, Idaho is counted as RUCC class-2 metro. However, this
is a large block-group in the “Four Corners” region, with an estimated
area of 2,850 square miles (much of which is designated wilderness
areas), an estimated population of only 602 in 2019, and little to no
access to important services and amenities. The distance from the center
of the block-group to the nearest grocery store is nearly 100 km (na­
tional average is 6 km with a standard deviation of 12 km) and the
distance to the nearest electric transmission line, bank, fire station, or
public school is far above national averages ranging from 55 to 100 km
(Fig. 7a). The CARR value for this block-group is 0.79 suggesting a high
degree of rurality instead of being classified as urban. Interestingly, this
block-group is classified as RUCA class-10 so CARR seems to agree well
with RUCA in this case, but not with RUCC. Similarly, block-group
320310035011 is categorized as a class-3 metro by both RUCC and
RUCA since it is a part of Washoe county in Nevada (where Reno, NV is
located). However, this block-group with a CARR of 0.74 is largely a
desert with large, designated wilderness areas and a 2019 population of
325 people in a 4,500 square mile block-group on the outskirts of the
Reno metro area. This block-group also has little access to essential
services such as supermarkets, fire stations, hospitals, and public schools
which are 50–90 km from the center of the block-group (Fig. 7b). In this
case CARR contrasts with both RUCC and RUCA.
Next, we examine block-groups that are categorized as very rural and
non-metro by RUCC and RUCA but do not have high CARR values. The
first example is block-group 530559604002, a block-group in San Juan
County, Washington that is classified as a non-metro area that is
completely rural with less than 2,500 people and not adjacent to a metro
area. However, the population density for this block-group is not low
since in 2019 it had 918 people in only 1.54 square miles. Moreover, it
has access to many essential services and amenities such as banks, child
care services, a museum, restaurants, supermarkets, and parks, within
K.S. Nelson and T.D. Nguyen Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333

Fig. 6. Map of block-group 300859400015 at Wolfs Point, Montana. The block-group boundaries are outlined in black and assets (supermarket, public school,
fire station, bank, library, playground, community center, museum, restaurant, movie theater, hospital) located within 20 km of the block-group are shown as points
with different symbols. (Assets not pictured are not available within 20 km)

Fig. 7. Map of block-group 160739502003 in Idaho (a) and 320310035011 in Nevada (b). Assets located within 50 km of the block-group are shown as points
with different symbols.

the block-group (Fig. 8). For example, the distance from the center of the
block-group to the nearest supermarket, hospital and public school is
less than one km while amenities such as a movie theater, library,
museum, and park are less than two km away. While this block-group is
distant from a major metropolitan area, the moderate population den­
sity, high percent land developed, and strong degree of access and
availability of many services and amenities lead to a CARR value of
0.505, which is slightly higher than the mean value of 0.496. This
suggests that while this block-group is not a metro area with an abun­
dance of services and amenities available to its citizens, it is also not a
“rural” area with little to no access to modern services and amenities.
Next we examine block-groups where current categorizations among
RUCC, RUCA, and census differ, but where the CARR index, arguably,
provides a better sense of rurality. For instance, block-group
181199558003 (and adjacent block-group 181199558004) is part of a
town in Owen County, Indiana, classified as rural by census but as metro
by RUCC class-3. We argue this difference is untenable and confusing as
they provide non-comparable information. However, the CARR index
indicates that, while this block-group is part of a small town surrounded
by large forested areas and farms, it is about average in terms of rurality.
This bock-group has a relatively high population density of 1,826 people
per square kilometer in 2019 with moderate access and availability to
many community assets (Fig. 9a). The CARR value for this block-group is
0.472, which is slightly lower than the mean value nationally. In another
case where CARR provides a more intuitive sense of rurality, we have
block-group 360470702021, which is on the edge of Kings County, New
York. It is classified as rural by census but as a highly urban metropolitan
area by RUCC (class 1) and RUCA (class 2). It is classified as metro by
RUCC and RUCA because it is a part of the New York City metro area, but
it is counted as rural by census because it is largely undeveloped land (a
marsh and airfield near Marine Park) with a very small population of 8
people in 2019. We similarly argue that it is problematic that the current

329
K.S. Nelson and T.D. Nguyen Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333

Fig. 8. Map of block-group 530559604002 in Washington. Assets located within 100 m of the block-group are shown as points with different symbols.

Fig. 9. Map of block-group 181199558003 in Indiana (a) and 360470702021 in New York (b). Assets located within (a) 100 m of the block-group or 2 km (b)
are shown as points with different symbols.

categories would provide inherently very different information about 4. Limitations

this place, but also that none of the categories captures both the rural
(low population, low level of development, low density of services and
amenities) and urban (near/in a metro area, high access to services and
amenities) characteristics of the block-group Fig. 9b). The CARR value
for this block-group is 0.485, reflecting both its location on the edge of
New York City and undeveloped character, but also its relatively strong
access to many community assets nearby.
In short, we illustrate how current categorizations can provide sub­
stantially different, and sometimes conflicting, information about many
areas in various contexts in the United States. On the other hand, we
suggest that using the CARR index provides a more consistent and
intuitive characterization of rurality.
There are three main limitations to the CARR index. First, similar to
existing classifications of rurality, there are issues with the use of
administrative boundaries for delineation across space. In particular,
block-group (also census tract and county) sizes are irregular, where
areas with lower populations tend to be much larger than block-groups
with a high population density. This variability inherently alters esti­
mation of distances and density of services and amenities, resulting in
averages across block-groups with populated and unpopulated areas as
opposed to values that reflect the nature of specific populated places.
Despite this limitation, our block-group resolution index provides
greater clarity on differences across populated places than has

330
K.S. Nelson and T.D. Nguyen
previously been made available for the entire conterminous U.S. Second,
despite our use of the most granular and up-to-date information, there
are still data limitations. In particular, infrastructure data are limited,
especially longitudinally and in terms of quality attributes (e.g. road
condition, hospital capacity) of specific assets. In our case, we assume
that all infrastructure reported in the datasets currently exist in a useable
condition. Realistically, there is a likelihood that many assets (such as
grocery stores) have closed doors and are no longer functioning. Simi­
larly, there is a likelihood that many assets that currently exist have not
yet been reported to the data providers. We also rely on OSM
community-sourced data, so some infrastructure may be underrepre­
sented where community members are less involved in digital mapping
activities. However, our use of factor analysis on a great many asset
types ensures that errors in one particular asset type will not strongly
bias the availability and access measures developed. Relatedly, even in
cases where, for example, a store has closed doors, the presence of the
physical store building represents a community asset that may be
leveraged in future economic growth. Third, the CARR index does not
support sociological and cultural perspectives as no single measure of
rurality can fully encompass everything. We also do not include de­
mographics outside of population density as part of our rurality measure
since demographic profiles may shift rapidly due to migration trends or
environmental and societal changes (e.g., climate change, pandemic
responses) and are also less actionable and more difficult to address
directly via policy actions.
5. Discussion and conclusion
As previous work has recognized the limitations of heavily relying on
population density and distance to metropolitan areas to measure
rurality (Lichter and Brown, 2011; Minore et al., 2008; Nelson et al.,
2021; Waldorf, 2006), our work addresses this fundamental issue by
suggesting a new measure of rurality that includes multiple dimensions
of rurality, including typical measures of remoteness and population
density as well as the physical infrastructure that reflects advantages
and disadvantages in the provision of services and amenities critical to
the maintenance of the population and economy of communities
(Agarwal et al., 2009; Binswanger and Deininger, 1997; Matson et al.,
2016; Siddiqi and Collins, 2017). To create a multi-dimensional measure
of rurality, we build a unique dataset that links several national-scope
public datasets at the most granular scale available to date. In our
analysis, we describe the spatial patterning of CARR across the U.S. and
the substantial variations that exist within counties. We also compare
differences and similarities of CARR against U.S. Census and USDA
classifications. In particular, we select and discuss several examples that
contrast differences between the CARR index and current measures of
rurality and illustrate how current classifications may provide substan­
tively conflicting information about the community while CARR is more
consistent and intuitive.
We suggest the CARR index has several strengths relative to previous
measures of rurality. First, conceptually, CARR addresses the support of
basic life functions and well-being by considering the provisioning of
services and amenities for modern life (Gillespie-Marthaler et al., 2019).
The index includes many services and amenities that address the
fundamental needs that people have before they can focus on higher
level needs (Huitt, 2017). Second, since CARR focuses on
semi-permanent assets of communities, policymakers and governmental
agencies can identify communities with resources that can be leveraged
for growth and community sustainability (Matson et al., 2016; Siddiqi
and Collins, 2017). Third, researchers have argued that broad aggre­
gated spatial consideration of access to services would miss considerable
heterogeneity that exists within aggregated areas and that we need to
consider finer spatial scales of how services and amenities are distrib­
uted (Fortney et al., 2000a, Fortney et al., 2000b; Hall et al., 2006;
Minore et al., 2008). Along this line, the higher spatial resolution of
CARR acknowledges heterogeneity within communities, which would
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Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333
further allow for policymakers to address differential needs within a
single community, such as the issue of disparities in access to healthy
food and healthcare (Rosik et al., 2021; Walker et al., 2010). Since CARR
is measured at the block-group level, it can be examined in both “urban”
and “rural” larger areas such as at the county or census tract level.
Fourth, since CARR is continuous and therefore more sensitive than
categorical measures to small changes, we will be more able to consis­
tently examine how rurality is changing over time due to shifts in pop­
ulation density or the availability of services and amenities. Fifth, CARR
is a continuous measure of rurality that allows for greater nuance and
more granular analyses than most existing categorical measures. As a
continuous measure, CARR can be used flexibly in modern regression
analyses. For instance, CARR can be divided into deciles or interacted
with other continuous and categorical variables to examine the inter­
action effects of rurality and other factors in regression analyses. Sixth,
the inclusion of community assets with traditional measures of rurality
in CARR provides an intuitive and consistent measure of rurality as the
descriptive case studies illustrate.
We see several potential applications of CARR and directions for
future research. First, to enable future work we will make the index
freely and publicly available at a dedicated and persistent website.
Second, temporal updates to the CARR index can be provided to examine
how community assets and relative rurality may shift over time. Third,
CARR may be constructed at different spatial resolutions (e.g., county
level, census tract, gridded). Fourth, scholars can create international
versions of CARR for many countries using OSM data (e.g., Nirandjan
et al., 2022). Fifth, scholars can examine the relationship of CARR with a
host of important outcomes, including education, health, economics,
politics and many other social outcomes. Sixth, policymakers and
governmental agencies may examine how community resources (and
investment in community resources such as highway and broadband
infrastructure) can lead to improved outcomes in areas such as educa­
tional attainment and health. They may also estimate the costs needed to
elevate CARR in underserved areas to be on par with non-disadvantaged
communities by investment in much-needed community assets, as well
as estimate how regional investment strategies could reduce these in­
vestment needs.
In short, we make several contributions to the scholarly and policy-
relevant work around rurality with the CARR index. We envision the
construction and availability of the CARR index to have many implica­
tions for policy and practice and open many new directions of future
research in fields ranging from healthcare to geography to economics
and to enable new developments in rural policy development and
evaluation.
Author contributions
Both authors contributed equally to this paper. Conceptualization:
KSN, TDN. Methodology: TDN. Investigation: KSN, TDN. Visualization:
KSN. Supervision: KSN, TDN. Writing—original draft: KSN, TDN. Wri­
ting—review & editing: KSN, TDN.
Data availability
Data will be shared via the author’s github account at https://github.
com/katesnelson/CARR.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2022.12.025.
K.S. Nelson and T.D. Nguyen Journal of Rural Studies 97 (2023) 322–333

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