Toward One Oregon: Rural-Urban Interdependence and the Evolution of a State

Chapter 2. A Tale of Two Oregons: Common Aspirations, Different Contexts, and Critical Interdependencies in Urban and Rural Oregon

17 Chapter 2 A Tale of Two Oregons Common Aspirations, Different Contexts, and Critical Interdependencies in Urban and Rural Oregon Sheila Martin1 Bruce Weber Introduction All Oregonians, regardless of where they live, have the same hopes and aspirations for their communities: —A strong economy offering rewarding jobs and the opportunity to meet a family’s basic needs for food and shelter —Good health and a healthy environment —Vibrant communities and neighborhoods —Strong friendships and families Notwithstanding these common hopes and concerns, Oregonians live in very heterogeneous environments and each region of Oregon faces different challenges and opportunities. While we often characterize the different parts of our state as either rural or urban, there is neither a typically urban nor a typically rural Oregon. The state offers a mixture of different types of urban places, and there is also enormous diversity in the more sparsely settled areas. Nevertheless, many of the challenges and opportunities facing Oregonians are rooted in the complicated relationship between rural and urban Oregon. Even the definitions of rural and urban are complex and multidimensional. Three characteristics—size, density, and distance—generally define the differences between rural and urban areas. The size of a place, in terms of both population and land area, is one dimension by which ruralness or urbanness is judged; the others are a related dimension, density, and the distances people 18 TOWARD ONE OREGON must travel in the course of their daily lives. These three characteristics affect how Oregonians experience their daily lives: their job opportunities, the impacts of population, the faces they see in their schools, the characteristics of the land surrounding their communities, and their access to important services. This chapter sets the stage for a discussion about building a shared future for rural and urban Oregon. We begin with a look at the evolution of the urban and rural areas of Oregon over the past century and a half. After exploring alternative definitions of urban and rural, we review the state’s long-term population trends and how the resulting population patterns have created the current rural and urban context. Then we compare and contrast some of the key characteristics of metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas in Oregon. Finally, we examine some ways in which the urban and rural areas of the state are interdependent and contribute to each other’s vitality. These economic, social, and environmental interdependencies provide the basis for moving beyond the “two Oregons” and building a future in which both rural and urban assets are employed for the benefit of all. Defining Urban and Rural People often think of urban places as busy, crowded, and noisy, while the word rural evokes a sense of open space, a slower pace, peace and quiet. Economists, demographers, and sociologists have developed a number of different definitions of urban and rural areas. One of the most common definitions draws a distinction between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties. One definition of a metropolitan area is a core urban area with a population of fifty thousand or more and consisting of one or more counties, including the counties containing the urban core, plus any adjacent counties that have a high degree of social and economic integration with the urban core, as measured by commuting patterns (Office of Management and Budget 2000, U.S. Census Bureau).2 By this definition, anyone who resides in a metropolitan county is considered urban, while everyone else is rural. The metropolitan counties in Oregon are highlighted in figure 1. These counties contain 76 percent of Oregon’s population and 18 percent of its land area. One shortcoming of this definition is that, at least in Oregon, there are many places within metropolitan counties that most people would not think of as urban. For example, Yamhill County is considered part of the Portland A TALE OF TWO OREGONS 19 metropolitan area because it has strong commuting links to the Portland urban center, yet it includes large, sparsely populated agricultural areas. Similarly , much of Marion and Polk counties would seem to most observers very rural, yet because parts of these counties are within the urban core of Salem, which has a population of more than one hundred and fifty thousand, they are regarded as metropolitan counties. A second definition of rural and urban Oregon might correspond more closely to traditional notions based on population size and population density. This definition, as developed by the U.S. Census Bureau, regards as...