The Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (CREC), in partnership with the National Association of Development Organizations Research Foundation (NADO) and others, received funding from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) to analyze the current alignment of state and EDD strategies, raise awareness of the benefits of strategic alignment, develop a best practices guide, and provide technical assistance to states and EDDs to enhance alignment.

As a part of the effort to analyze alignment between states and EDDS, the CREC team developed a state and local economic development strategies (SLEDS) database. The database classifies strategies from the 53 available U.S. state and territory economic development strategic plans and 402 CEDS plans organized to serve all or parts of states, territories, and the District of Columbia. The database is a great tool to compare state’s strategic plans with Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS) from economic development districts (EDDs), and to quickly reference and compare CEDS goals and activities across the country.