For decades the demographic story of the northern Great Plains has been the same. People have been leaving the rural areas and sparsity has been increasing. While a handful of urban areas have grown, the population of the region has remained generally stagnant. Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual update of population estimates for the nation. For folks working in rural and economic development in the eastern portions of Wyoming and Montana, the Dakotas and Nebraska, the question is: is there any sign of change in the decades-old pattern of exodus?

For big city dwellers the answer is yes. Most of the major metropolitan areas in the region grew at a healthy rate between July 2007 and July 2008. Seven of ten major cities (Billings, Bismarck, Casper, Cheyenne, Fargo, Rapid City and Sioux Falls) expanded by an average of 1.9 percent. These growth rates don’t compare to the boom in some parts of the West and the South, but they are significant to a region that has been losing population for such a long time.

Not all metro areas in the region were winners. Grand Forks, Great Falls and Sioux City grew by just under half a percent over the year. These cities have been struggling to hold population throughout this decade. Since 2000, for example, Grand Forks has lost nearly 200 residents. Meanwhile, the metropolitan population of the Sioux City area has been essentially flat for eight years.

But did urban growth rates come at the continuing expense of rural counties and micropolitan communities? Out of 20 “micropolitan” areas (see Census definition) with populations ranging from 15,878 to 70,694, growth rates between 2007 and 2008 were all below the average of the metropolitan areas. Collectively, they grew by an average of just over half a percent. Communities that lost 1 percent or more of their population included Pierre, SD and Wahpeton, ND-MN. Micropolitan areas that gained more than 1 percent included Brookings, SD; Grand Island, NE; Huron, SD; Laramie, WY; Riverton, WY and Sheridan, WY. Thus, with some variation, the micropolitan communities are holding their own within the northern Great Plains region, but they are not growing as fast as the metropolitan areas.

State-to-state variations are significant as well. With its energy resources, eastern Wyoming’s metropolitan and micropolitan areas all have net positive growth in this decade. In North Dakota, however, while the metropolitan areas have shown healthy growth, the micropolitan have, for the most part, lost population since 2000. Meanwhile, in South Dakota and Nebraska, micropolitan areas have experienced more uneven growth with some communities growing by several percentage points since 2000 and others losing population.

What about the rural counties? In all of the counties in easter Montana, Wyoming and the states of North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska, population outside the metropolitan areas has continued to decline. The economic opportunities offered by the Internet and telecommuting have not begun to influence the larger demographic wave of history that has carried people out of these rural communities and into the major towns and cities of the region. The slow growth of some micropolitan regions, and even the slowing of the exodus from some rural communities, may reflect the presence of new pioneers working remotely from the northern Great Plains, but until we get richer data from the 2010 Census, we won’t know for sure.

(An earlier version of this post also appeared on www.dakotaday.com)

(For direct access to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent population estimates, visit U.S. Census)