The Framework

The Community Economy

The community economy is the system through which a community

  • Produces goods and services
  • Generates income and wealth
  • creates economic opportunity
  • circulates resources among households, businesses, and institutions.

Communities must understand their local economies if they are to shape their economic future.

Community Economics

Community economics is the study and practice of understanding how local economies function and how communities can strengthen them.

Community economics develops the economic understanding of place that communities need to strengthen their economies and shape their economic future. It begins with the recognition that every community has an economy.

Understanding how this system works is the first step toward strengthening it.

The Community Economist

A community economist is someone who:

  • Understands how their local economy works
  • Knows how to analyze community economic data and systems
  • Uses that knowledge to help strengthen the community economy.

The Everydaynomics® Framework

The Everydaynomics Framework provides practical tools for building the economic understanding of place so that communities can design stronger economic strategies.

It helps communities examine key questions such as:

  1. How does the community economy work?
  2. Where does the community’s wealth come from?
  3. How does money circulate within the community?
  4. Who benefits from the economy—and who does not?
  5. What resources and opportunities exist?
  6. What strategies can strengthen the community economy?

The Five Functions of a Healthy Community Economy

By asking and answering key questions about how their community economy works and how wealth and opportunity are generated, communities develop the economic understanding of place. This understanding allows community leaders to strengthen the five essential functions of a healthy community economy and produce stronger economic outcomes.

A strong community economy:

  1. Creates economic opportunity
  2. Generates and sustains local wealth
  3. Circulates economic resources within the community
  4. Supports community well-being
  5. Sustains opportunity for future generations

The Learning Model

The Everydaynomics framework translates economic data into practical strategy through a simple progression:

Data → Information → Knowledge → Action

Relationship to Other Fields

Community economics complements several established fields:

  • Economic Development — focuses on growing jobs, investment, and industry
  • Community Economic Development — focuses on expanding economic opportunity within communities
  • Community Development — focuses on improving overall community well-being

Community economics provides the economic understanding of place that strengthens these efforts.

The Everydaynomics® Professional Certificate

The Everydaynomics® Professional Certificate Program trains community leaders to become community economists.

Participants learn to analyze their local economy and apply the Everydaynomics framework to develop a Community Economic Profile (CEP).

Communities gain leaders who understand how their local economy works and can design community-driven, politically viable economic strategies.

The Big Picture

Community Economy
↓
Community Economics
(economic understanding of place)
↓
Community Economists
↓
Everydaynomics® Framework
↓
Stronger Community Economies