2001 U.S. Rural New & Expanded Activity

By Pete Julius In order to successfully attract businesses to rural communities, it is imperative to understand which industries gravitate to less populated areas.  For most communities, it is extremely challenging to attract businesses.  For rural communities which...

Capacity Utilization

By Dean Whittaker Capacity utilization is one of the key measures for determining the need for companies to add new capacity. One of the more useful websites for economic development is www.economy.com.  This site offers an abundance of economic indictors and reports...

Featured Website: Business.com

By Jeff Vedders We’d like to introduce you to Business.com, Inc. (www.business.com).  Business.com is a web-based directory of businesses organized by industry.  This is a good web site to visit when looking for companies within a particular industry.  For example, by...

Grid Computing

By Leigh Howe Internet – the next generation.  When you here the word “grid”, you immediately think of the grid of electrical power.  Take the same concept to the computer and the Internet, and you come up with “grid computing”.  Grid computing is a network of linked...

Measuring Sustainability

By Katie Terpstra Sustainable development is a strategy by which communities seek economic development approaches that also benefit the local environment and quality of life.  It has become an important guide to many communities that have discovered that traditional...