Questionnaire data from 81 North Carolina communities were analyzed in 1981 to test the hypothesis that 5 institutional subcategories (education, general community services, transportation, agricultural services, and health and sanitation) exhibit the underlying characteristic of unidimensionality and that they reflect comparable levels of differentiation. Guttman scales were constructed for all categories except agricultural services. Failure of the agricultural items to reflect a cumulative differentiation scale pattern left the possibility that most, if not all, of the items were nevertheless related to community differentiation; that agricultural service items were more related to the overall magnitude of agricultural production in the county; and that some commodity specific regional agricultural structures existed. Findings showed that county agricultural variables (including dairy processing plants, fruit packing plants, meat packing plants, vegetable canning plants, grain elevator and storage plants, poultry processing plants, and lumber mills/kilns) were better predictors than community variables for most agricultural processing services. Findings also supported the theory of the existence of some commodity specific regional agricultural structures. Conclusions indicated hinterland agricultural patterns may have considerable effects on certain community agricultural services and general urban differentiation and population size may have little or no relationship to their availability. A four-page reference list and nine data tables are appended. (NEC)