The paper addresses the importance of developing a rural community's commercial sector for economic development by providing some analytical tools. Procedures are outlined to estimate commercial sector activity in a community, to estimate commercial sector activity for various counties within a state (Nevada is used as an example), and to develop…

This handbook is intended for communities that wish to undertake their own community impact assessment (CIA). The goal is to enable communities to plan for changes before they occur, so they can cope with changes when they do occur. CIA involves forecasting and evaluating the full range of unintended consequences for the community of development…

This document details the purposes and principles of community audits and presents guidelines for designing and conducting a community audit to assess a local community's workforce development needs and resources. Section 1 presents an overview of the U.S. Department of Labor's Community Audit Project and explains the following key steps in…