• Is Your Community Ready for Economic Development – Texas A & M University – Is your community really ready to initiate and economic development project.
• The Elements of Economic Development – University of Missouri Extension -- More communities have come to realize that change is inevitable, and they are establishing economic development programs to help them manage that change.
• Charting the Future of Our Community – Pennsylvania State University.
  
• Setting Our Course -- A strategic visioning process designed to help communities plan for and control their future.
  • Where We Are -- Charting the Future of Our Community is a strategic visioning process designed to help communities plan for and control their future.
  • Where We Want to Be -- Charting the Future of Our Community is a strategic visioning process designed to help communities plan for and control their future.
  • Making the Trip -- Charting the Future of Our Community is a strategic visioning process designed to help communities plan for and control their future.
• Taking Charge of Your Communities Future – North Dakota State University Extension -- Defining community can be difficult, as community means different things to different people. It may help to think about community as a community of place or as a community of interest.
• Finding the Common Ground: Understanding Your Community’s Agriculture – Pennsylvania State University Extension -- This is designed to help increase appreciation and understanding of farm activities, and to give you an idea of what you can expect living near farms. It can help you understand the positive contributions of agriculture, as well as why farms sometimes produce odors or noise.
• Start Tapping Economic Potential – Auburn University -- Will you be able in the coming years to provide jobs for your high school graduates, and maintain a decent standard of life for your citizens?
• Rural Low Income Families Speak – Louisiana State University – The ability of low income families to be self-sufficient.
• Understanding Your  Community's Economy
  • Understanding your Community’s Economy - Kansas State University - Local leaders have rediscovered the need to work with private firms and pursue community-based economic development.
  • Blueprints for Your Communities Future: A Targeted Economic Development Approach -- Oklahoma State University Extension -- This fact sheet presents a targeted approach to local economic development efforts and a potential data/information source.
  • Understanding Your Community's Economic Base – University of Missouri Extension -- Community leaders continually make important decisions that affect their community's economic growth and development.
  • Using Employment Data to Better Understand Your Local Economy – Pennsylvania State University Extension -- This series of extension publications provides a family of tools that can help you better understand your local economy.
  • Understanding Your Trade Area: Implications for Retail Analysis – Mississippi State University Extension -- This publication shows a few simple ways to determine the geographic size of a town's trade area.
• Understanding Economic Change in Your Community – Pennsylvania State University Extension.
  • Using Unemployment Data to Better Understand Your Local Economy: Introduction - This introduction to the Using Employment Data to Better Understand Your Local Economy series gives an overview of using this analysis by defining the local economy, discussing potential economic indicators, and explaining how to use this information
  • Using CIM-PSU to Understand the Effects of Change on Your Community -- An economic impact model, called the Community Impact Model-Penn State (CIM-PSU), has been designed to help communities better understand their local economy.

• Using Employment Data to Better Understand Your Local Economy – Pennsylvania State University Extension.
  • Develop a "Snapshot" of Important Local Economic Indicators -- Explains how to develop a "snapshot," or basic overview, of important economic indicators through charts and tables.
  • Chart the Historical Performance of Key Economic Indicators – Explains how to use trend analysis to identify new opportunities and "shocks" to important local indicators, raise or alleviate concerns, and identify growth opportunities.
  • Use Location Quotients to Identify Local Strengths, Opportunities, and Industry Clusters -- Describes using the location quotient, which helps identify those local industries that are producing more than is needed for local use and selling outside the region and those that are not meeting local needs and are a source of consumption leakage.
  • Shift-Share Analysis Helps Identify Local Growth Engines -- Explains how shift-share analysis can be used to overcome the challenge of separating the role of local and national effects on current regional employment trends.
  • A Pennsylvania Internet Resource for Industry Employment and Occupation Projections -- Focuses on the Center for Workforce Information and Analysis (CWIA) Web site as an on-line tool for addressing questions about future employment growth such as "What are the expected growth industries and occupations in your local economy?"
  • Qualitative Analysis Can Provide Unique Insights into Local Economic Performance -- Explains how practitioners may use qualitative analysis to tap into local expertise in order to obtain information on the local economy that does not appear in official statistics.

Community Economic Assessment

• Trends in Retail Trade – Oklahoma State University Extension -- This fact sheet identifies and describes 10 major trends in the retail trade sector. Details and statistics for the following trends are discussed; the growth of e-commerce, kids in the retail market, building customer knowledge files, the American mall in decline, challenging the category killer, precision shopping, entertaining the customer, globalization of retail trade, smart cards, and the general decline in retail sales growth.
• Assisting Retail Trade Using Consumer Surveys – Oklahoma State University Extension -- With recent concern of the economic situation in Oklahoma, leaders have recognized the need for improved growth and development in rural Oklahoma.
• Building Healthy Communities-Analyzing Local Markets - Kansas State University Extension — Factors in business success include competition, local trade area population, area income levels, household spending patterns, etc.
• Potential for Retail Trades in Rural Communities – University of Missouri Extension -- Rural communities developed primarily as trade centers for the surrounding farm area.
• Understanding Your Trade Area: Implications for Retail Analysis - Mississippi State University Extension — This publication shows a few simple ways to determine the geographic size of a town's trade area.