Designed to assist individuals who need to bring information to citizen groups or decision makers concerned with community economic development, this manual uses a question-answer format to cover topics that might occur to someone just starting to build an understanding of community economic analysis. Among topics covered are: strategies for economic development; multipliers of employment, income, and turnover; assessing size and shape of community trade area; keeping local dollars in the community; measuring the efficiency of local firms; stimulating new firms; and government aid. Theories and tools of economic analysis are drawn from disparate sources and clarified by example as they appear in the text. The need to integrate different forms of analysis is demonstrated. The 25-page appendix uses hypothetical cases to describe how to calculate the specific tools and interpret resulting data. A 41-item bibliography provides additional sources of information about the tools and theories. An index is included. (LFL)