Conceptualizing and measuring the nonmetropolitan turnaround in US counties: an alternative procedure.

The nonmetropolitan turnaround refers to the process where nonmetropolitan areas cease being losers of population through net migration and become gainers. Implicitly, the turnaround involves both a pre- and post-turnaround period. However, most studies of the turnaround examine the migration change occurring after the onset of the turnaround. A broader conceptual framework is introduced to the study of the nonmetropolitan turnaround by examining not only the migration change since the beginning of the turnaround but also the amount of change experienced for a period before the turnaround. Measures operationalizing these two concepts result in very different results, and the principal predictors of one are not the same as predictors of the other. -Authors

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