This report presents planning, implementation, and first-year operational phases of Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act (YEDPA) programs by prime sponsors in the Southwest. The prime sponsors were the city of Albuquerque and the encompassing county of Bernalillo, New Mexico; the Coastal Bend Manpower Consortium Area in Texas (administered by the city of Corpus Christi, Texas, plus 12 additional counties, most of which are rural); and the city and county of El Paso, Texas. Although widely separated in geographic location and significantly diverse in industrial composition, the three prime sponsor areas had several common key characteristics. All have large minority group populations (mostly Hispanics); all have large youth populations; all three are characterized as generally low-wage labor markets, are largely nonunion areas, and have serious poverty and unemployment problems. The report contains information on the following from the three case histories: knowledge development (no significant efforts undertaken); content and quality of work experience, including job quality and effects on the summer program for youth; youth participation and targeting, including participant characteristics and enrollment; substitution and overhead of the program; institutional change; changes at the local level; federal influences upon local planning and legislative uncertainties about Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) programs; and response of local administrators to federal policy decisions. (KC)