The recent reversal in the intraregional migration into nonmetropolitan areas has generated a great deal of interest in the problems of local government finance .. or specific concern are the changes in local government expenditures and revenues that have accompanied population growth and decline and related shifts in population composition in nonmetropolitan areas of the Northeast. Using a supply and demand framework, it is argued that the approach used in previous studies of examining the relationship between growth rates and various fiscal variables leads to biased inferences regarding the impact of growth. By analyzing the impacts of changes in the socioeconomic make-up of the population which often accompany growth and decline, the study increases the understanding of fiscal strains on local governments resulting from population shifts.