Rural Development Perspectives, Vol. 12, No. 2: RDP Indicators

development. Broad sets of economic opportunities accrue to a place by virtue of both its size and its access to larger economies. And, access to larger economies—centers of information, communication, trade, and finance— provides the conduit through which the smaller economy connects to national and international marketplaces. These relationships among economies are basic concepts of central place theory commonly studied in regional economics (Lösch, Nourse). Population size, urbanization, or access to larger communities are often central in much research that is dependent upon county-level data sets. For purposes of enhancing research on the geographic differences in economic opportunities, we developed a set of county-level urban influence categories.