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rurality 0.1.1

Data-correctness patch (2026-04-13).

Bug fixes

• county_rurality: distances to the nearest large/medium/small metro were computed against an incomplete metro list (15 large / 9 medium / 5 small). Counties near any large metro outside the top 15 — Denver, Minneapolis, Portland, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Kansas City, Austin, San Antonio, Nashville, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Louisville, and others — were being measured to New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles and classified as “Suburban” rather than “Urban”. Example: Denver County shipped with dist_large_metro = 591, classified Suburban.
• Rebuilt with a full metro list shared with the rurality-app web project (52 large / 57 medium / 36 small). After this patch the major urban-core counties (Denver, Hennepin, Multnomah, Mecklenburg, Cuyahoga, Marion-IN, and similar) classify as Urban.

Data

• county_rurality: 3,235 rows, unchanged schema. Score distribution (Urban / Suburban / Mixed / Rural / Very Rural): 184 / 908 / 669 / 976 / 498.

rurality 0.1.0

Initial CRAN release (2026-04-10).

Core

• get_rurality() returns the composite rurality score, classification, and RUCC code for a U.S. county identified by 5-digit FIPS.
• get_rucc() and rurality_score() return their respective scalar values for one-off lookups.
• get_ruca() returns the primary RUCA code for a ZIP code tabulation area.
• classify_rurality() converts a numeric rurality score (0-100) into an ordered classification: Urban, Suburban, Mixed, Rural, Very Rural.
• add_rurality() joins rurality variables onto an existing data frame by FIPS column, with optional selection of the full variable set.

Data

• county_rurality: all 3,235 U.S. counties with 24 variables, including composite score, classification, RUCC 2023, population density, distance to nearest large metro, and ACS 2022 demographics.
• ruca_codes: USDA RUCA 2020 codes for 41,146 ZIP code tabulation areas.

Methodology

Composite score is a weighted average of RUCC code (55%), population density (28%), and distance to nearest large metro (17%), rescaled to 0-100.

These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.
Health stats visible at Monitor.