Demographic and socioeconomic changes are reshaping the fortunes of small communities and pose policy issues. Such communities find it especialy difficult to deal with rapid growth or decline, or a switch from one to the other. Small communities now enjoy greater autonomy, but at the cost of reduced federal aid. Freed from federal mandates, each community has been thrown far more on its own resources to manage its own growth or decline. For each situation there are separate questions. For rapidly growing communities: How much local population growth is desirable? Are growth and its effects predictable? How much will growth cost, who should pay for it, and how? For declining communities: How can local facilities and services be scaled down in an orderly fashion? How are cutbacks to be decided, and which services are to be reduced for whom? For all communities: Are there predictable changes in service demands as population changes, or as types of residents change? What type of economic growth is best? How should communities equip themselves to plan for, and adjust to, change? One useful role for a rural development strategy for the 1980's would be to assist state and local governments in finding answers to these questions. (Author/BRR)