The nonspecialized group includes counties whose economies did not fall into one of the economic specializations.
The nonspecialized group includes 484 counties whose economies did not qualify for one of the economic specialization types. They represented approximately 20 percent of nonmetro counties, population, jobs, and earnings. Though defined somewhat differently, the nonspecialized type is a residual group replacing the unclassified category in earlier typologies. About 150 of the nonspecialized counties were unclassified counties in the 1979 typology, 116 were farming counties, and 81 were manufacturing counties.
As a group, nonspecialized counties resemble all-nonmetro counties on many demographic, population, and economic characteristics. Their industrial structure mirrors closely that of all- nonmetro counties, although the share of jobs from farming was slightly higher.
Two-thirds of the nonspecialized counties experienced job growth during the 1980's. Growth in jobs (and earnings) was somewhat slower than the all-nonmetro rate (fig. 12, table 6). Income levels (per capita and median family) were slightly lower, and reliance on transfer income was higher than for all-nonmetro counties. The nonspecialized group had $36 of transfer income for every $100 of earned income -- the second highest ratio for any of the economic groups.
Nonspecialized counties dot the national landscape (fig. 11). They appear in 44 of the 50 States (excluding Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Hawaii, and New Jersey, which is totally metro). The large majority are located in the South (49 percent) and the Midwest (37 percent). Texas contains 47 nonspecialized counties, Missouri 39, and Georgia and Kentucky each contain 30. About two-thirds of nonspecialized counties have between 2,500 and 20,000 population living in urban places. Nearly 60 percent of the counties are adjacent to a metro area. The land area in nonspecialized counties was smaller (874 square miles), on average, than in all- nonmetro counties (1,256 square miles).
Of the nonspecialized counties, 124 overlapped with persistent poverty counties and 119 overlapped with commuting counties. The proportion of workers commuting outside the county to work ranged from 3 percent to 83 percent. The evidence reviewed here suggests that the nonspecialized group includes counties with two general kinds of economic performance in the 1980's. First, there are counties that had strong economies associated with diversification or associated with strong service sector growth in counties that are residential sites for adjacent metro spillover. Second, there are those counties that had weak economies caused by shifts away from specializations in farming or manufacturing or caused by having a small economic base and/or high concentrations of poverty. In improved economic times, some of the nonspecialized group may return to one of the economic specializations. The nonspecialized group also includes a few counties that are specialized in economic activities such as construction, agricultural services, or forestry or fisheries.
Table 6--Nonspecialized counties:
Selected characteristics
Item Unit Nonspe- All-
cialized nonmetro
counties counties
--------------------------- ------- ------- -------
Counties Number 484 2,276
Population, 1990 Thousands 11,105 50,898
Urbanized, 1993(1,2) Percent 73.9 66.0
Population density, 1990(3,4) Number 36.0 36.3
Population change, 1980-90(4) Percent 1.7 .6
Per capita income, 1989(4) Dollars 13,004 13,580
Earnings change, 1979-89:(5) Percent .6 3.4
Counties with earnings growth,
1979-89(2) do. 49.0 13.2
(1) Persons living in towns of 2,500 population or more.
(2) Percentage of counties in group.
(3) Persons per square mile.
(4) Unweighted county averages.
(5) Calculated from aggregated data.
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