DETROIT (AP) - New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau show that home values in Michigan's rural areas surpass those in Michigan's urban areas - deviating from national trends.
The statistics come from the census bureau's American Community Survey, which includes national demographic information from 2011-2015. Urban home values nationally are higher than rural home values, but that's not the case in Michigan. The survey found a rural median home value in Michigan of $136,100, compared with $117,200 in urban areas.
Pleasant Ridge Mayor and demographer Kurt Metzger said Michigan's major cities have largely been "areas of disinvestment."
"Our cities are still centers of low housing value and poverty," he said. "We are late to the trend of city investment, with center-city development and in-migration of millennials and professionals still in the early stages."
Metzger said some communities have been able to recover from the recession faster than others, while some communities still suffer the effects five years later, he said.
"Poverty doesn't care where you live," said Michigan State University economics professor Charles Ballard. "If you're a family of four and you're trying to survive on one person's minimum wage job - that's hard whether you are in Detroit or Bad Axe."
Median household income in Michigan rural and urban areas also doesn't mirror national trends. Michigan has a higher rural median household income ($52,989) than urban ($48,068).
An average of 20 percent of Michigan residents in mostly urban counties are over the age of 64. That compares with 26 percent in mostly rural counties and 33 percent in completely rural counties.
"They don't have a lot of momentum in terms of their population," state demographer Eric Guthrie said of rural areas. "There's not going to be a lot of new persons being born in those populations. In fact, they have a lot more people on the other end of the equation."
About 60 million people live in rural areas nationwide. As the U.S. population increases, the percentage of the population living in rural areas continues to drop.
Published: Thu, Dec 15, 2016
