Deserts and oases: the continuing concentration of population in the American Mountain West

The Mountain West is a region that seems to be simultaneously rural and urban. With its wide-open spaces, many national parks, monuments, and forests, and high degree of federal land ownership the West appears as the quintessential rural area. However, over 70 percent of the West's population live in metropolitan areas. This simultaneous rural and urban nature of the West is important in understanding the changing population geography of the region. We examine this by focusing on changing patterns of population concentration among metro and nonmetro counties. Unlike other regions in the US, the Mountain West has never experienced a period of counterurbanization or population deconcentration. Not only is current in-migration to the region increasingly concentrated in old and new metro areas, it is also concentrated in a select number of nonmetro areas as well—particularly nonmetro counties adjacent to metro areas, in retirement destinations, and in recreation centers.