Iowa Communities of Distinction: A Summary Analysis of Success Factors & Lessons Learned from In-Depth Studies of Selected Iowa Communities

Mark Edelman and Sandra Charvat Burke

Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This project examined local perceptions regarding the factors that contributed to community vitality or the lack thereof during the decade of the 1990s in order to provide lessons learned, best practices and innovative ideas for other community leaders in Iowa and other states. Researchers identified eight non-metro communities ranging in population from 1,100 to 11,000. Two communities of similar size were selected from each regional quadrant of the state. One of the two communities from each quadrant exceeded the state average population growth rate for the decade of the 1990s. The other lost population. An interdisciplinary assessment team conducted on-site interviews with a cross-section of local leaders from local government, economic development, education, and healthcare in each community. A total of 75 community leaders from the eight communities were interviewed for this project. Draft reports were developed from field notes and local interviewees were given an opportunity to review the drafts for their community prior to publication. Loss of a major employer and organizational capacity to respond was identified a the major explanatory factor in explaining the difference in population growth and decline for the period.

Date: 2004-03-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/papers/paper_12392.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:isu:genres:12392

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Staff General Research Papers Archive from Iowa State University, Department of Economics Iowa State University, Dept. of Economics, 260 Heady Hall, Ames, IA 50011-1070. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Curtis Balmer ().