Urban areas in the United States – cities and suburbs – contain over 80% of residents in the country. Yet, new job growth happens even at even higher rates in these areas:

Meanwhile, researchers at Cornell University estimate that 94% of the nation’s job growth since 2000 happened in urban counties.

Many would not be surprised to hear that cities are job centers. Whether thinking about offices, industry, or service sectors, cities are often viewed as centers of innovation and economic activity.

But, one of the lesser known aspects of suburban growth in the United States is the amount of jobs in the suburbs. As part of a complex suburbia where suburbs are more than bedroom suburbs dependent on urban centers, suburbs are full of work and business activity. When I wrote the Oxford Bibliographies entry on Suburbanism, I made sure to include “Economic Activity in the Suburbs” as one of the sections.

It sounds like this also means that rural areas are not experiencing much job growth. The job growth is not close to the percent of Americans who live in rural areas. Without seeing historical data, it is hard to know whether this is a big change from the past or whether this has been the case for a long time. At the same time, it is hard to imagine that many rural areas can thrive when they experience little new job growth.