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December 1989, Vol. 112, No. 12
Consumer expenditures in different-size cities
Susan M. Banta
The 1980's were a decade of metropolitan migration, with large cities continuing to house a growing percentage of our population. The Bureau of the Census recently reported that:
More than 3 of every 4 people live in the country's 282 designated metropolitan areas .... The metropolitan increase [between 1980 and 1987] was 8.5 percent (14.6 million), more than twice the 4.1 percent increase (2.2 million) in nonmetropolitan territory. National growth since 1980 has amounted to 7.4 percent.1
The growth of U.S. metropolitan areas may affect consumption if these areas have different patterns of expenditures. Two questions can be raised with respect to urban areas: Do earning and spending patterns differ with city size? and, If so, are these differences similar to those between urban and rural areas? To answer these questions, this article presents a comparison of the average annual expenditures and income in metropolitan (large) and nonmetropolitan (small) cities.
This excerpt is from an article published in the December 1989 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
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Footnotes
1 Bureau of the Census, News
Release, Sept. 30, 1988.
Consumer spending on durables and services in the 1980's.
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