The Future of the Sparsely Populated Rural Towns of Connecticut

Abstract

Although population depletion in many rural towns and concomitant increases in urban and suburban areas have gone on for many years, it is probable that the movement was not widely recognized until the report of the American Country Life Commission, published in book form in I91I. Recent trends in the cityward drift of the rural population in Connecticut are set forth in the study entitled Population Mobility in Rural Connecticut.2 It was found, for example, that nearly half the towns of the state-on the whole, those that are the most sparsely settled-either have declined in numbers or have a practically stationary population (Fig. I). The towns that either are decreasing in population or had a negligible increase for the decade ending I930 are distributed chiefly along the eastern and the western highlands in a north and south pattern. The obverse side of this picture is shown on Figure 2. Here are 14 towns whose populations have increased 50 per cent or more during this decade. These are principally on the outskirts of the large cities and along the shore near New York. Closely connected with population mobility in rural Connecticut is a shift in occupation. In earlier days farming had a wide vocational interest for the inhabitants of New England, and even though much of this farming was part-time, a relatively large percentage of the population could be termed farmers. Today the rural-farm population is practically nil in the three southern states of New England, though it still constitutes a rather important part of the population in the three northern states. In Connecticut in I930 only 5 per cent of the population could be classified as rural-farm population. Even so, we know from the rather generous definition of farming given by the United States Bureau of the Census that probably most of these farmers can be so listed only as a matter of courtesy. Their chief sources of income are nonagricultural, and much of their farming is part-time and recreational. A recent survey of part-time farming in Connecticut, based on a rather liberal definition of such farming, indicates a significant increase in the number of people