... The number of people living in primarily rural or rural/ suburban counties but also including a moderate urban area ** is 2,771,459 (approx 32%)
I used to live in Union County. To call it rural would be an absolute stretch. Suburban, maybe, but not rural or rural/suburban. Leave one Union County city and you enter another. It is wall to wall small cities -- difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends except for the city limits signs.
I generally agree. Union County is more suburban. The urban section being that around Elizabeth/Linden/ Hillside etc.
The portions of Union around Mountainside, New Providence, Berkely Heights etc. are definately upscale suburban. I classed it as I did because it really didn't fit in with the heavily urban criteria for the county as a whole.