Nonmetro population rebound continues and broadens.

"As the decade of the 1990s has progressed, the nonmetro [U.S.] population has received a substantial net influx of people, leading to sharp reduction in the number of counties with population decline.... A third of the nonmetro counties grew at a rate higher than the Nation as a whole (5.6 percent) from 1990-95, and such counties had three-fourths of all nonmetro growth.... Among major regions, nonmetro population growth continued to be much faster in the West than elsewhere...."