Rural California Report

California is at the leading edge of demographic change in the United States, as the state’s cities, suburbs, and rural towns are inhabited by millions of foreign-born, and their children, who now account for half of California’s population. Many of these groups have been around for generations and have influenced California’s culture—from its arts and politics to its customs and cuisine. Yet, these same groups are often scapegoated when it comes to the state’s sluggish economy, overburdened hospitals, or underperforming schools. The numbers, however, do not tell the full story of how these Californians are shaping the physical and cultural landscape of the state.

Definitions of “rural” are not standardized – some programs use definitions such as "communities under 50,000 that are rural in nature," "areas of less than 2,500 not in census places," or "Nonmetro County." In addition to the confusing nature of the definitions, they generally do not relate well with realities of western states and mountainous topography – greatly impacting the eligibility of communities and individuals to access programs. The negative impact of these definitions is especially true for rural communities that have been experiencing inordinately high in-migration from other areas; growth not necessarily due to increased economic opportunity within the region, but rather from lack of affordable housing for low- and middle-income people in nearby areas.

When most Americans think of California, they typically conjure up visions of beaches, Hollywood, the Golden Gate Bridge, Silicon Valley, or an urban/suburban lifestyle. But for many decades, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, California also has had more rural residents than any of the eleven western-most states of the contiguous forty-eight. Census 2000 found California’s rural population totaled 1,876,753 persons, nearly twice as large as second-ranked Washington state’s non-urban population (Census 2010 has not yet reported rural population findings).  

Rural economies of California have been historically dominated by natural resource production (some would say “exploitation”): farming, ranching, fishing, logging, mining and hunting. During the past several decades, only farming has experienced real growth in economic terms, largely due to a major expansion of the annual output of high value commodities, such as fruits and nuts, vegetables, ornamentals and dairy products.

California’s agricultural success story is illustrated by the fact that nine of the ten U.S. counties with the largest value of farm production are located within the state. But the fishing and logging industries are in serious decline and may never recover, while mining and hunting long ago depleted their natural resource bases.