Johnson, Thomas G., Daniel M. Otto, Steven C. Deller (eds.) Community Policy Analysis Modeling.

Johnson, Thomas G., Daniel M. Otto, Steven C. Deller (eds.) Community Policy Analysis Modeling. Ames, IA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006, 287 pp., $99.99.

Seasoned readers who follow developments in regional economics may wonder if this volume is an updated version of a 1993 book edited by Otto and Johnson. While the topic is similar, the two books are quite different; the 2006 volume does not even cite the 1993 volume. The 1993 book was a loosely organized but still valuable collection of readings focused on input--output and related models. The 2006 book appears to have been carefully outlined by the editors and commissions issued to the various contributing authors. The apparent attention to the book's organization helped minimize many of the pitfalls associated with a typical edited volume (overlap, gaps). The book should be especially useful for practitioners, or for researchers who have a grasp of the theory behind the models, but who need a basic introduction to how to implement this type of modeling. The book is composed of sixteen chapters that provide the reader an introduction to the many dimensions of successful model development and interaction with stakeholders.

In Chapter 1 (Johnson, Otto, and Deller), the reader gains an introduction to the history of the kinds of models employed by the Community Policy Analysis Network (CPAN), an umbrella organization that unites the book's contributors (mostly agricultural economics faculty) across the Land Grant system. The chapter also offers insights into how requests from policy makers are typically framed, and some comments on various types of community indicators before concluding with a discussion of the organization of the book.

Chapter 2 (Scott and Johnson) provides an overview of the challenges facing rural America. The chapter authors then describe some particular issues facing rural governments before concluding with some comments on the role researchers can play in informing local government policy.

Chapter 3 (Otto and Swenson) provides an overview of the various kinds of local government in the United States, the services they provide, their sources of revenue, and the amount of money they allocate to their functions. They conclude by pointing out that rural governments face particular challenges due to low population densities and aging infrastructure.

Chapter 4 (Scott and Johnson) provides a more detailed discussion of the formation and functions of CPAN, and the Rural Policy Research Institute's role in supporting CPAN. Chapter 5 (Shields) discusses the philosophical foundations that guide the CPAN group's modeling efforts and offers a brief taxonomy of major types of community forecasting and impact models. Chapter 6 (Johnson) introduces the reader to conceptual and practical issues associated with integrating spatial labor markets into models of the community's economy, while Chapter 7 (Deller) does the same for the local public sector.

Chapters 8 through 12 offer example models from Missouri (Johnson and Scott), Iowa (Swenson and Otto), Nevada and neighboring counties (Harris, Shonkwiler, Ebai, and Janson), and Texas (Evans and Stallmann). Along the way the reader learns how local conditions and priorities get translated into very different models, even when the guiding principles and conceptual foundations are similar.

Chapter 12 (Cox and Swenson) provides an overview of the major sources of federal data for the kinds of models discussed in the book, while Chapter 13 (Swenson and Shields) introduces the types of off-the-shelf software used to construct many of the models. Reliance on readily available data and software has helped the network keep their activities affordable, an important consideration in making the results of this kind of modeling approach accessible to limited resource communities, a value that is consistent with the Land Grant mandate.

In Chapter 14 (Kovalyova and Johnson), basic standard indicators of model performance are introduced, discussed, and applied to Missouri's model. This is an underdeveloped area within the group's activities and substantial important contributions to the literature could be made here in the future.

Chapter 15 (Henry, Barkley, and Deller) provides key considerations in developing scenarios in community modeling, and make the important point (p. 229) that in community policy analysis, "'rules of thumb' can never be correctly applied" because the impacts of a change vary substantially from one community to the next. The chapter also offers an example scenario from Wisconsin's model. Chapter 16 (Deller) concludes the book with some excellent ideas for engaging community leaders through multiple visits and provides examples of how this class of models has been used to address local policy questions.

In conclusion, this is a fine contribution that sets a higher-than-usual standard for an edited volume. Not only was the architecture of the book well conceived, but the execution is also quite good. This reviewer found few typos, none of which confused the meaning, and very few instances of repeated information across the sixteen chapters (pages 141 and 189 providing a notable exception). The book could have been a bit broader in citing works from authors outside of the CPAN group. For example, the Web Book of Regional Science provides easily accessible material on the basic theory of the group's modeling approaches that could make the book more understandable for those not familiar with input--output and related models, the regional science journals are replete with applications that complement the example models presented, and the community development literature offers alternative ways of structuring community engagement and public policy dialog. Citing these non-CPAN works could have enriched the reader with a broader set of experiences from which to draw upon in developing models and using them to create more informed policy decisions at the local level. Finally, the lack of recent citations indicates that the book may have been "in press" for a year or two. But these are minor complaints about an otherwise useful addition to the literature.

Scott Loveridge

Michigan State University