This is the fourth edition of Avrom Bendavid-Val's classic book that has become a standard for practitioners and students of public administration, urban and regional planning, and regional economics. Last revised in 1983, the work now provides a comprehensive practitioner-oriented study of the state of the art of regional and local economic development planning, with emphasis on specific project activity arrived at through an analysis of the regional economic context. The book is written in a straightforward style, free of technical terms and jargon, and is suitable for readers without an extensive background in economics, mathematics, or statistics. In addition, all analytical work is presented in a form that can be carried out without the use of vast databases or computers.

Bendavid-Val divides his work into five basic parts, each covering a different feature or method of analysis and planning. Part one introduces important aspects of the overall economic and development context within which the methods of regional analysis are used. Parts two, three, and four offer an introduction to common descriptive methods of analysis for use in regional planning, covering aggregate regional analysis, intraregional analysis, and project identification and evaluation. Finally, part five deals with approaches to regional development planning, providing help in selecting the methods that will be most useful in a given situation. A selected bibliography concludes the book. This work contains everything the practitioner or student needs in order to understand what regional and local economic development is all about, as well as to acquire the basic analytical skills for regional development planning, and to design and carry out a regional development planning process. Public and academic libraries will find this updated and expanded edition to be a significant addition to their collections, and for students and practitioners in regional planning and development, it will be an essential reference source.

Development specialists often overlook the feet that the towns of a rural region play as essential a role in the region's economy as does agriculture, and they design and implement broad strategies without due recognition of the unique and dynamic character of each individual region. Proper analysis requires consideration of the changing nature of rural regions and the principal agents of change. The contributors to this volume argue that development strategists should focus on processes rather than on products by taking the nonfarm aspects, as well as the farm aspects, of rural development into account and by recognizing that land, labor, water, and technology do not alone lead to balanced regional and agricultural development. The analytical approaches presented in this book incorporate wide-ranging variables from the urban space of rural regions-markets, towns, service industries, and organizations-that have major impacts on the rural regional economy. These methodologies aim at improving rural regional development processes.

Development specialists often overlook the feet that the towns of a rural region play as essential a role in the region's economy as does agriculture, and they design and implement broad strategies without due recognition of the unique and dynamic character of each individual region. Proper analysis requires consideration of the changing nature of rural regions and the principal agents of change. The contributors to this volume argue that development strategists should focus on processes rather than on products by taking the nonfarm aspects, as well as the farm aspects, of rural development into account and by recognizing that land, labor, water, and technology do not alone lead to balanced regional and agricultural development. The analytical approaches presented in this book incorporate wide-ranging variables from the urban space of rural regions-markets, towns, service industries, and organizations-that have major impacts on the rural regional economy. These methodologies aim at improving rural regional development processes.

This is the fourth edition of Avrom Bendavid-Val's classic book that has become a standard for practitioners and students of public administration, urban and regional planning, and regional economics. Last revised in 1983, the work now provides a comprehensive practitioner-oriented study of the state of the art of regional and local economic development planning, with emphasis on specific project activity arrived at through an analysis of the regional economic context. The book is written in a straightforward style, free of technical terms and jargon, and is suitable for readers without an extensive background in economics, mathematics, or statistics. In addition, all analytical work is presented in a form that can be carried out without the use of vast databases or computers.

Bendavid-Val divides his work into five basic parts, each covering a different feature or method of analysis and planning. Part one introduces important aspects of the overall economic and development context within which the methods of regional analysis are used. Parts two, three, and four offer an introduction to common descriptive methods of analysis for use in regional planning, covering aggregate regional analysis, intraregional analysis, and project identification and evaluation. Finally, part five deals with approaches to regional development planning, providing help in selecting the methods that will be most useful in a given situation. A selected bibliography concludes the book. This work contains everything the practitioner or student needs in order to understand what regional and local economic development is all about, as well as to acquire the basic analytical skills for regional development planning, and to design and carry out a regional development planning process. Public and academic libraries will find this updated and expanded edition to be a significant addition to their collections, and for students and practitioners in regional planning and development, it will be an essential reference source.

In the 19th century, nearly five million Jews lived in the Pale of Settlement. Most lived in shtetls--Jewish communities connected to larger towns--images of which are ingrained in popular imagination as the shtetl Anatevka from Fiddler on the Roof. Brimming with life and tradition, family and faith, these shtetls existed in the shadow of their town's oppressive anti-Jewish laws. Not Trochenbrod. Trochenbrod was the only freestanding, fully realized Jewish town in history. It began with a few Jewish settlers searching for freedom from the Russian Czars' oppressive policies, which included the forced conscriptions of one son from each Jewish family household throughout Russia. At first, Trochenbrod was just a tiny row of houses built on empty marshland in the middle of the Radziwill Forest, yet for the next 130 years it thrived, becoming a bustling marketplace where people from all over the Ukraine and Poland came to do business. But this scene of ethnic harmony was soon shattered, as Trochenbrod vanished in 1941--her residents slaughtered, her homes, buildings, and factories razed to the ground. Yet even the Nazis could not destroy the spirit of Trochenbrod, which has lived on in stories and legends about a little piece of heaven, hidden deep in the forest. Bendavid-Val, himself a descendant of Trochenbrod, masterfully preserves and fosters the memory of this city, celebrating the vibrant lives of her people and her culture, proving true the words of one of Trochenbrod's greatest poets, Yisrael Beider: I beg you hold fast to these words of mine. After this darkness a light will shine