The U.S. Department of Agriculture, one of the primary resources for rural energy efficiency and competitiveness grants, defines a “rural community” as “…any location beyond the urban periphery surrounding a city of 50,000 or more – in essence, areas not located in a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). A rural area begins beyond the legal boundaries of the urban area, after undeveloped, open country is encountered.” In general, rural communities are those with a population of less than 50,000, unless they are legally within the MSA of a larger metropolitan area (in other words, some suburban communities with populations of less than 50,000 are excluded by the USDA definition).