In the coming months we hope to encourage or commission a thoroughgoing and informed assessment of the range of possible demographic changes that will both reflect and drive the economic prospects for rural people and places over the next two decades. Looking at the components of these changes – inward and outward migration, natural increase and decrease, shifting age and ethnic compositions – together with some informed judgments about metropolitan expansion and other distributional impacts, will provide a powerful context for a discussion about policy opportunities and options for rural America.

An excellent baseline for such an assessment is provided by Kenneth Johnson at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey Institute. He presented his analysis of demographic trends in rural America to the 2011 Rural Assembly – Demographic Trends in Rural America 
The main points he made were as follows:

• In the period 2000-2010, the population in metro areas increased by about 11 percent, whereas nonmetro areas adjacent to metro areas grew by about 5.5 percent and remote nonmetro areas by less than 3 percent.
• This modest growth in nonmetropolitan areas was accounted for in those adjacent to metro areas by a mix of natural increase and net inward migration, but in the remote areas by mainly net natural increase.
• However, there were major differences in the distribution of population change, with a large swath of the nation’s mid-section from eastern Montana and North Dakota southwards to west Texas experiencing a population decline 2000-2010. This is the result of continuing outward migration and net natural decrease (deaths exceeding births).
• Where there has been growth, this has been driven by migration to high amenity areas for retirement and recreation especially in the West.
• A major trend is the increasing diversity of rural America resulting largely from a 45 percent increase in the Hispanic population and a 20 percent increase in Hispanic young people under the age of 20. This latter increase coincides with 10 percent and 8 percent decreases respectively in the young white and black populations.
• Diversity is a characteristic of much of the South from New Mexico to the Carolinas – the same areas that continue to experience the highest concentrations of child poverty, although these are also to be found in central Appalachia and the Tribal lands on the Plains.

A focus on the future requires a considerable amount of care and humility. Certainly, the performance of past predictions has rarely been on the mark. Many people through the ages have cautioned about the folly of trying to do so. Winston Churchill believed that “[i]t is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future.” And Patrick Henry noted, “I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.” At the Rural Futures Lab, we wish to be clear about where we stand on imagining the future for rural America.

Russell Ackoff in an article over 20 years ago helpfully provided a starting point.

“Time is a very considerate variable: it divides conveniently into three unambiguous parts: the past, present, and future. People are equally divisible into three types: those preoccupied with the past, those with the present, and those with the future – pastologists, presentologists, and futurologists.”

The following chart summarizes the characteristics of these types.

Pastologists	Idealize the past and see the present as a set of unfavorable deviations from it.	When a problem occurs, identify a cause (who is to blame) then remove or suppress the cause.	If successful, the previous state is achieved.
Presentologists	Idealize the redesign of their present.	Work backward from the desired state to identify the steps needed to close gap between this and reality.	Treat possible futures as assumptions not forecasts.Includes preparedness for possibilities.
Futurologists	Idealize one or more futures, usually 5-10 years out	Work forward from now through planning to a desired state.	Relies heavily on predictions – even though pace of change and complexity makes them more unreliable

Although he does not use the term “presentology”, Ziauddin Sardar adds strength to Ackoff’s arguments in his “Sardar’s Laws of Futures Studies.” He argued that futures studies are wicked (meaning that they deal with complex, interconnected, contradictory problems), MAD or mutually assured diversity (the future is assured and remains open to all potentials and possibilities), skeptical (uncertainty and doubt are essential for positive change), and futureless (their impact is on the present). Sardar concludes:

“All futures activities, from forecasts to visioning, causal layered analysis to the Millennium Project, have a direct impact on the present: they can change peoples’ perceptions, make them aware of dangers and opportunities ahead, motivate them to do specific things, force them to invent or innovate, encourage them to change and adjust, galvani[z]e them into collective social action…”

Ziauddin Sardar, “The Namesake: Futures; futures studies; futurology; futuristic; foresight—What’s in a name?” Futures 42 (2010) p. 184

Similarly, we would like our focus on the future to impact the discourse about rural America by shining a light on trends and opportunities. We would like to change the perceptions of rural America and its contribution to national well-being. Clearly this may mean alerting of possible dangers but the emphasis needs to be on the positive. We hope this will open up new options, new ways of thinking and acting, and ultimately contribute to improved policy and practice.