Unfortunately there is no one great one size fits all strategy for economic development. Understanding the assets your community already has can help you to determine how to use your limited economic development resources. As we discussed in a blog post earlier this year, sometimes business attraction strategies are not worth the effort depending on your specific community and resources.

Rural and small communities face different challenges than major cities when it comes to economic development and determining appropriate strategies. While large cities may have more success targeting and attracting major businesses to help build their economy, small and rural communities may find that providing their residents with continuing education, encouraging local business, and entrepreneurship to be more successful strategies.

The resources below explore innovative ways that small and rural communities can develop their economy. They cover a wide range from entrepreneurship to working with other communities in the region instead of competing against them. If you have any questions about these strategies you can comment below, ask a question, or visit the economic development topic page.

• “Asset-Based Economic Development: Building Sustainable Small and Rural Communities” this briefing paper from the ICMA Center for Sustainable Communities discusses how small and rural communities can make development choices that are both highly profitable and environmentally responsible.
• “Seven Steps to Developing an Economic Gardening Implementation Strategy” is an article that describes the entrepreneurial economic development strategy of growing a local economy from within instead of focusing on business attraction. This process is broken up into seven easy to understand steps in this excellent article.
• “Putting Smart Growth to Work in Rural Communities” is a document that used three major strategies to ensure smart growth and economic success in small and rural communities.
• “Data Innovation and Economic Development Incentives” this blog post from the ICMA Center for Sustainable Communities that highlights the main take aways from the series “From Data to Decisions” and how communities can use data to inform their economic development decisions.
• “Community –Based Entrepreneurship Development” this document from the South Dakota Municipalities shows how small and rural communities can use small enterprises to create even more jobs than those that come with attracting businesses to the community.

If your small or rural local government has helpful economic development documents or advice upload the documents and start blogging about it today! We all benefit when someone takes the time to share their advances and best practices.

Best,

Robin Saywitz

ICMA Knowledge Network Intern

rsaywitz@icma.org