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Show Population Shift From Rural to City Life Noted in Census NEW YORK A further shift from rural to city life has occurred oc-curred among Americans during the past 10 years, Metropolitan Life Insurance company statisticians, report. This trend is evidenced, according ac-cording to the statisticians, by the 1950 census returns which show that the rate of population growth has been least in counties with small communities. Although the county's total population popula-tion increased by 14.5 per cent In the ten years from 1940 to 1950, the counties with a population under 25.000 In 1940 increased only 0.2 per cent. By contrast, the counties with 25,000-49,999 population gained 8.3 per cent. The most rapid in- crease 19.5 per cent was in counties coun-ties with 100,000 or more people In 1940. "This tendency of the people to concentrate more and mpre in areas which already are well populated continues a trend which has existed exist-ed for many decades," the statisticians statis-ticians observe, "with the result that a steadily increasing proportion propor-tion of the population is living in the larger towns and cities." The counties with less than 25,000 residents in the south-central and west-north-central agricultural regions re-gions actually lost population between be-tween 1940 and 1950. In California, however, which had an extraordinary extraordi-nary population growth during the decade, even the small counties, with numerous small towns, increased in-creased 27 per cent. The over-all growth of population In the past decade is found to follow fol-low a definite geographic pattern. "The relative gains were smallest In the northeast, and accelerated as one goes southward and westward," the statisticians noted. |