This project aims to addresses the question of how to initiate rural economic development projects, from the perspective of rural local officials. Research on rural economic development is limited by a reliance on publicly available datasets and a focus on questions of importance to academics and not the local officials who actually contend with the issues created by the
economic decline. This research effort will attempt to overcome these limitations by taking more of a qualitative data approach based on interviews and focus groups, and it will produce case studies and a theoretical examination of the drivers of rural economic growth.