Area Analysis

[Chris Duzan]

I've been looking around BiggerPockets for a little while and haven't found much on the subject of area analysis. I'm reading a book right now(Buy it, Rent it, Profit! by Bryan Chavis) that discusses analyzing an area or neighborhood before you even start looking at actual properties and I happened to be listening to one of the podcasts today with Ben Leybovich(Show 61, I think) where Ben was arguing that you buy for location, not specifically the property.
I guess my question is, what is the best way to go about analyzing an area and at what level do you do this at(state, county, city, neighborhood)? Bryan Chavis goes over this but it didn't seem quite clear to me and I wanted to hear what everyone else does for this.

Thanks ahead of time for the replies.