That experience underscores the complexity of defining what constitutes a rural community for the purposes of qualifying for rural-specific federal programs — a question that has plagued Congress, USDA officials and researchers for decades. Communities looking to qualify for rural development programs must first prove that they meet the government's definition of “rural” before they can be considered for assistance. But there’s no one-size-fits-all definition, and population thresholds vary from program to program. As larger socioeconomic forces have shaped demographic changes in rural communities and spurred population shifts, some experts and policymakers — Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue among them — have called for an updated calculation that takes more factors into account beyond population size.