What Is a Frontier Community?

What Is a Frontier Community?

What Is a Frontier Community Publications and Resources

What Is a Frontier Community

Yes the American frontier still exists

Photo from Rural Health Information Hub Frontier counties (marked in green) are often defined as having a population density of fewer than six people per square mile. According to the , “Frontier America consists of sparsely populated areas that are geographically isolated from population centers and services. Frontier, like rural, suburban, or urban, is a term intended to categorize a portion of the population continuum. Frontier refers to the most remote end of that continuum (in some states the wilderness designation is considered most remote).” Click on the image to learn how to order or download this free publication. “Unfortunately, there is not a single universally-accepted definition of frontier,” notes the . “Definitions of frontier used for state and federal programs vary, depending on the purpose of the project being researched or funded. While frontier is often defined as counties having a population density of six or fewer people per square mile, this simple definition does not take into account other important factors that may isolate a community. Therefore, preferred definitions are more complex and address isolation by considering distance in miles and travel time in minutes to services.”
The identifies several factors to consider in classifying an area as frontier. The following conditions, explains the association, “may cause significant problems in access to health services, create poor economic opportunities and other conditions causing health and social disparities.” “Rural is typically defined ... as ‘non-metropolitan’ or ‘non-urban.’ This doesn’t tell us much. Perhaps due to this lack of precision and our nation’s agrarian roots, people still commonly equate rural with agriculture, fields of corn, cows and hardscrabble farmers. This is not only inaccurate; it is wide of the mark. From vibrant college towns to communities gone bust from the flight of paper mills or coal mines, from hopping cultural tourism locales to centers of furniture, machinery and textile manufacturing, rural America is anything but simply farmland, and it is anything but uniform.” —

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What is a Frontier Community? Additional articles and a link to this page can be found at . Article adapted from the . Page published February 2020

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