The Enduring Price of Place: Revisiting the Rural Cost of Living☆

Abstract

Even as the 2016 elections brought increased public attention to rural life, stereotypes and misconceptions abound. One of these misperceptions is the generalization that prices are lower in rural areas. This article is a restudy of Zimmerman, Ham, and Frank (2008) research on geographic differences in the costs of living. Asking the same fundamental question—if someone bought the same thing in a rural and urban area, would they pay the same price?—and using the same methodology, the results 10 years later indicate that, contrary to popular perception, there was again no consistent pattern of lower prices in rural counties and no consistent pattern of a lower rural cost of living in all of the rural areas. While prices are only one piece of the larger picture of how rural households meet their needs, in addition to price differences, the results highlight how differences in rural life create additional costs that extend beyond prices.