Highway interchanges offer rural counties practically ready-made sites for development, but some interchanges offer better development opportunities than others. A study of a Kentucky interchange identified seven factors that make a difference in development, including traffic volume, distance to an urban area, ruggedness of terrain, and sale of…

Describes an effective process for strategic planning of telecommunications in rural areas that includes a needs assessment and an action plan as well as input from businesses, public agencies, and households. Lists elements of a telecommunications needs assessment. Describes the planning processes used in Northeast Wyoming Economic Development…

Examines indigenous capacity for local community development. Examines new economic development initiatives by communities, nature of relationships between local and larger economies, and how relationships affect local capacity for new economic activities. Discusses benefits of spatial framework in rural development and planning. (TES)

The rural communities of the North American Great Plains are experiencing fundamental economic and social changes that threaten their very existence. While local projects offer hope for survival, many communities lack the knowledge needed to envision and evaluate their possible futures. As a consequence, communities may pursue survival strategies…

The Community Design movement advocates that mismanagement of the physical environment is a major factor contributing to social and economic ills of a community. This book provides the proven tools and techniques for bringing community members into the community design process successfully and productively. It offers 15 case studies chronicling…

The Secretary of Agriculture reports that the government is seeking to keep already congested urban areas from having to cope with the extra 100 million people who may be added to the Nation's population in the next 30 years. (Editor)

A survey of 135 small towns in Nebraska found that half had undertaken economic development projects; development activity and success were related to community size (with the smallest communities lacking both local resources and outside support); and most community leaders perceived their development efforts as unproductive. (SV)

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 booklet contains summaries of workshop presentations at the conference on community development. This conference brought local community officials and leaders together with interested citizens to learn about successful rural community development activities occurring in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Sessions covered four main…

The purpose of this guidebook is to help elected leaders of small towns and communities stretch their investments when matching funds are required to compete for a grant or to pay for development costs above the grant award itself. The federal "small cities" Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) is used as an example throughout the…

Rural economic development depends on implementation of strategies that capture the competitive edge of the total rural environment. It will not succeed by weak duplication of traditional urban development strategies. The historic dependence on the natural resource base that is the common denominator for rural areas must be regarded not as a…

This manual describes an educational program for helping rural, small community leaders, decision-makers, and residents analyze their communities, think about alternatives, and plan economic development action strategies. The program is an effort to help communities explore short- and long-term development strategies, gain a vision of their…

Written to help communities boost their economies by attracting new industries best suited for local workers, this guide discusses the kinds of employees used by different kinds of industry and highlights specific industry hiring preferences, attributes of various industries, and worker characteristics. (JHZ)

This guide was written for small and rural government officials who have limited experience with the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program and with federal grants in general. The use of outside expertise is often necessary in projects involving public facilities, housing, and economic development, some of the principal activities which…

Serving as an introduction to Federal assistance and as a locator of specific rural development programs, this directory is divided into the 5 following general categories: (1) Jobs, Business, Industry; (2) Community Facilities; (3) Community Functions and Services; (4) Housing; (5) Planning and Coordination. Each of these categories is divided…