A Categorization Conundrum in the American Exurbs

Chester County, South Carolina, is caught in a geographic contradiction. Situated in upstate South Carolina's hilly piedmont region, Chester County is home to about 33,000 residents and contains a section of Sumter National Forest.

Although Chester is considered largely rural according to some definitions, it falls into the urban bucket in other categorization systems. As a growing suburb of the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, Chester is a metropolitan, or urban, county according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is the county-level system we typically use to define rural at the Daily Yonder...