Commuting and the Rural-Urban Hierarchy.

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to consider the relation between commuting and the settlement structure, with particular attention to rural and nonmetropolitan areas. I examined commuting flows between metropolitan central cities, other metropolitan areas, nonmetropolitan places with more than 10,000 people, those with 2500–10000 people, and other rural areas. Despite the deconcentration of population, industry and trade that was especially marked in the 1970s, commuting in 1980 was predominantly toward larger places in the ruralurban hierarchy, and particularly from rural areas and the other metropolitan category to cities. Overall levels of commuting were high, and most were within either nonmetropolitan or metropolitan areas. Smaller nonmetropolitan places particularly had high proportions of both in- and out-commuters. Differences in commuting flows by gender, socioeconomic status and industry were small, but generally in the directions expected on the basis of prior research. The findings reveal a high degree of work-residence interdependence among settlement units in nonmetropolitan America, with social and economic differences in commuting flows representing an important aspect of community structure.