This report was prepared as part of the Ohio River Basin Energy Study (ORBES), a multidisciplinary policy research program. The general project focus is on the regional impacts of various alternative energy development futures in the study region, which consists of all of Kentucky, most of West Virginia, and substantial portions of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. However, certain generalizations made at the regional level remain incompletely tested at the local scale; these questions may be especially important for some of the socioeconomic impacts associated with energy development. In this report, seven case study areas in the ORBES region are examined in terms of population, housing, economic status, and public services, and impacts of the ORBES scenarios in terms of population, housing, services, and taxes are presented. Finally, a method for generalization of the results is discussed, and a set of classifications of potentially impacted counties is presented and compared with the case study examples.

"Prepared for Ohio River Basin Energy Study (ORBES), Grant no. EPA R805589." This ORBES document was sent to EPA from the Ohio River Basin Energy Study. It appeared a few months later as an EPA document: EPA-600/7-81-063.