The phenomenological methods used to analyze the unique characteristics contributing to the stability of a small mid-western rural town may be useful tools for community researchers, providing an inexpensive, non-technical, humanistic-interpretive research approach. General concepts associated with community success were formulated through direct observation and indepth interviewing and fell into broad structural and cultural parameters. The sturctural parameter had three components: geographic conditions (physical boundaries), demographic conditions (age composition and community size), and institutional conditions (banks, school, churches, etc.) The cultural parameter was less "objective" in character and encompassed social momentum (the historical continuity impacting on current actions of residents), cognitive mapping (residents' identification with the community), and symbolic aspects of institutionalized community practices. These general parameters were and can be used as a first approximation of a taxonomy of community stability. Thematizing important characteristics of community viability should aid in distributing available resources in the most effective manner possible, thereby minimizing the waste of human as well as government resources. (NEC)