From the back cover:
Boom and Bust: A Guide is the result of a collective effort at the University of Alberta to better understand the dramatic ups and downs which too often charachterize western Canadian communities.  It offers community leaders, politicians, administrators, academics, students, and all active citizens helpful techniques to analyze the current state of their own community, understand how it got where it is today, and ultimately, identify possible ways forward.  We encourage analysis of historical paths and policy contexts to better understand what strategies might work (or not) in a community.