American Hometown Renewal Policy Tools and Techniques for Small Town Officials

Before the interstates, Main Street America was the small town?s commercial spine and served as the linchpin for community social solidarity. Yet, during the past three decades, a series of economic downturns has left many of the great small cities barely viable. American Hometown Renewal is the first book to combine administrative, budgetary, and economic analysis to examine the economic and fiscal plight currently facing America?s small towns. Featuring a blend of theory, applications, and case studies, it provides a comprehensive, single-source textbook covering the key issues facing small town officials in today?s uncertain economy.

Written by a former public manager, university professor, and consultant to numerous small towns in the Heartland, this book demonstrates the ways in which contemporary small towns throughout the nation are facing economic challenges brought about by the financial shocks that began in 2008. Each chapter explores a theme related to small town revival and provides a related tool or technique to enable small town officials to meet the challenges of the 21st Century. Encouraging local small town officials to look at the economic orbit of communities in a similar manner as a town?s budget or a family?s personal wealth, examining its specific competitive advantages in terms of relative assets to those of competing communities, this book provides the reader with step-by-step instructions on how to conduct an asset inventory and apply key asset tools to devise a strategy for overcoming the challenges and constraints imposed upon spatially-fixed communities. American Hometown Renewal is an essential primer for students studying city management, economic community development, and city planning, and will be a trusted handbook for city managers, geographers, city planners, urban or rural sociologists, political scientists, and regional microeconomists.

Section 1: The Contemporary Small Town

1. New Troubles for American Towns

2. The Main Street Community

3. The Small Town Policy Domain

Section 2: Policy Planning and the Community

4. Community Visioning and Strategic Thinking

5. Thinking About Demographics

6. Community Demographic Tools

7. The American Dream and Social Mobility

Section 3: Thinking About Economic Opportunities

8. The Heartland and the New Global Economy

9. Small Towns as Economic Engines

10. Meltdown from Wall Street to Main Street.

11. Housing Policy and the American Dream

12. Community and Housing Tools

Section 4: Labor Force Analysis

13. Labor Market Dynamics

14. Employment and Workforce Analysis

15. Where the Jobs Are

16. Is Your Community Competitive?

17. Main Streets as Commercial Hubs

Section 5: Main Street’s Fiscal Component

18. Where is the Money?

19. Small City Municipal Service Framework

20. Municipal Services and Fiscal Stress

21. The Small Town Budget Process

22. Public Debt Financing

23. Comprehensive Planning and Fiscal Policy

24. Rebooting Community in the New Economy

Gary A. Mattson, Ph.D. AICP, is a charter member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, was a practitioner for 15 years, has served on several state commissions or boards, and was a college professor of public management and city planning for more than 20 years. He is currently Associate Professor of Public Administration at Northern Kentucky University, USA.