This represents over 43 percent of all U.S. counties. Characteristics of Natural Decrease Counties Natural decrease has been most protracted in the Great Plains, in the Western and Southern Corn Belt, in East and Central Texas, and in the Ozark-Ouachita Uplands. There were also early pockets of it in the Upper Great Lakes and in Florida. Later, it occurred in the interior uplands of the South. And most recently in the interior of the Southeast, in New York and Pennsylvania and in parts of the West.
Natural decrease is primarily a rural phenomenon.
More than 93 percent of the counties with episodes of natural decrease are nonmetropolitan. Counties remote from urban areas are at greater risk of experiencing natural decrease. And, counties that are entirely rural are much more prone to natural decrease than those with a town or small city, whether adjacent to a metropolitan area or not. The heavy concentrations of natural decrease counties on the Great Plains and in the Corn Belt reflect the linkage between dependence on agriculture and natural decrease. Farming counties are the most likely to suffer natural decrease.