Community decision makers selecting an economic development strategy most appropriate for their local community must begin with an understanding of how their local economy functions, what its economic base is, and how changes in that base may affect local economic structure and performance. The economic base approach emphasizes the roles of…

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…

Printed for use by the Select Committee on Small Business (House of Representatives), these hearings present the testimony of 23 individuals on "The Future of Smalltown and Rural America: The Impact on Small Business" held before the Subcommittee on Small Business Problems in Smaller Towns and Urban Areas (May 2-4, 1972). These hearings…

For many years, developers have placed near total reliance on increased productivity in agriculture, greater exploitation of natural resources, and the addition of new manufacturing industries as strategies for community economic development in nonmetropolitan areas. The concentration on expanding goods producing industries is unnecessarily…

This "Civic Index" is intended to help communities evaluate and improve their civic infrastructures, as well as look at the issues and find approaches to dealing with them. The 10 components of the Civic Index serve as a description of the types of skills and processes that must be present for a community to deal effectively with its unique…

The Defense Conversion Adjustment (DCA) Demonstration, administered by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Work-Based Learning, consisted of 19 demonstration projects that used three approaches to alleviate the negative impacts of defense cutbacks on communities, firms, and workers: community planning, dislocation aversion, and worker…