Area development has been of national concern for many years. A combination of (a) unequal natural and. human resource endowments, (b) differential impacts of technological change, (c) secular trends in factor and product prices, and (d) institutional (social, economic, cultural, and political) barriers to resource mobility have r'~sulted in wide differences in the rates and levels of economic development among areasol It is more apparent today than ever before that many of our country's less favored areas are responding sluggishly, if at. all, to the forces which are causing our current rate of national economic growth.