Deurbanization or deurbanisation is the physical decline of an urban population resulting from economic or social change. Deurbanization differs from suburbanization because it describes a migration to rural previously uninhabited regions that had low population density, not to the outer or surrounding regions of the city as defined by suburbanization.

Causes

Deurbanization is the opposite of urbanization. Urbanization is the process of which people migrate from rural communities to urban communities. People have moved from rural to urban communities for various reasons including job opportunities and simpler lives. In recent years, due to technology this process has been happening in reverse. With the rate of technology, people from rural communities can work from home because they can connect with each other via rural Internet, which no longer requires moving to an urban community for employment opportunities.

In past years, a multi-corporation business would use outsourcing by hire workers in Asia for cheap labor, but in more recent years, corporations have been using "rural sourcing." Rural sourcing is using a source from small to medium sized American towns, this creates jobs in the country and also for rural communities so they do not need to move their entire family to a whole new setting, and also reduces unnecessary expenses. Most of the workers in these rural settings get paid less but have an option of either working from home or an office. If they were in an urban setting, the company would spend more money on an entirely new office.