Community assets and relative rurality index

The CARR (Community assets and relative rurality index) index is a continuous, multidimensional measure of rurality based on the concept of sustainable development that integrates measures of environmental, social, and economic resources. The index incorporates traditional rurality measures such as population density, distance from metropolitan areas, and developed area with measures of availability and accessibility of 70 different infrastructure types that support essential community services and community amenities. The index uses data last updated in 2019 and is available for census block-groups in the coterminous United States. This repository includes versions of CARR calculated for block groups (original) and versions of CARR aggregated to other conventional spatial units using and area-weighted averaging approach on the original block group data. Each zip folder includes the raw data, a metadata file, and a basic exploratory data analysis document in html format. The information for Version 2 of this repository, and additional information on CARR, can also be found at ruralityindex.com.