The decline of rural areas caused by agricultural mechanization may now have run its course with the rise of post- or advanced-industrialism which is offering a new set of opportunities and problems for the development of many rural areas. Instead of the pastoral subsistence farm of the past, rural America is becoming primarily non-agricultural with employment in service industries increasing to nearly 70%. High technology manufacturing is locating in rural areas because it does not need to be near natural resources or energy and because rural locations offer desirable life style options to highly skilled employees. Rural educational opportunities are improving especially at the post-secondary and adult levels. While these changes offer rural areas the potential to break out of the cycle of rural poverty, they create new problems of interdependence which affect local government. Rural advanced industrialism may be found in all states, but is concentrated in the 16 most developed states; together these states have 22.8% of the U.S. nonmetropolitan population. (Author)