Book Description

This profile provides a description and assessment of the area economy of the Bitterroot Valley of southwestern Montana. Changing conditions and trends in the area economy over the course of the last twenty to twenty-five years are examined, including trends in population and employment growth and associated income changes and economic restructuring. Changing conditions in Ravalli County and the Bitterroot Valley are compared to those for the larger Rocky Mountain West region and nation as a whole. Various measures of the Bitterroot area economy also are systematically compared to similar measures for areas throughout the western United States having similar characteristics to the Bitterroot Valley. Two types of "peer areas" are selected for this purpose: 1) non-metro areas in the West nearby small and intermediate regional centers of 30,000 to 100,000 people, and, 2) non-metro areas nearby small and intermediate regional centers that are also nearby large concentrations of Forest Service lands.