As 2022 ended, 43 communities in Pennsylvania lost their status as an urban area thanks to newly released criteria from the U.S. Census Bureau and federal dollars could be at stake.
In 2010, qualifying urban areas needed to have a minimum of 2,500 residents. In 2020, the Census changed the criteria to define an urban area as having either 2,000 housing units or 5,000 people. It also eliminated the different types of urban areas based on population.
Pennsylvania has the third-largest rural population in the country as of the 2020 census, with more than 3 million people living in rural areas.
The commonwealth has 97 urban areas with the largest being — no surprise — Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, followed by Allentown-Bethlehem, Harrisburg, Lancaster-Manheim, Scranton, Reading, York, Erie and State College. You can see the full list of 2020 urban areas below.
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The list below shows the communities in Pennsylvania that are no longer considered rural. At least one, Saw Creek, a census-designated place in Pike County, meets the requirements on paper. However, the Census Bureau stated in an email that Saw Creek did not meet the urban criteria in 2020 and is considered rural.
Cannot see the chart? Click here.
But what does it actually mean for these communities?
“It’s too early to tell,” said Jonathan Johnson, senior policy analyst with the Center for Rural Pennsylvania.
Urban and rural areas qualify for different types of funding, the Associated Press reported. A community that may have qualified for a specific grant while classified as an urban area may now have to seek out funding for rural areas.
Johnson said that a lot of U.S. Department of Agriculture programs are based on the size of the town or village, rather than being classified as rural or urban.
Johnson said that a key thing to keep in mind is that the federal government determines what is urban first. Everything left over is considered rural. But things in once-considered-urban communities are unlikely to change now that they are no longer considered urban or urban clusters.
“You’re still a borough,” Johnson said, specifically referring to Emporium in Cameron County. “You’re still located in a very beautiful part of Pennsylvania.”
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