Citydata.com is an excellent resource to help you identify your markets and a site where you can try to identify economic, job, technological and population factors plus other important factors that may affect your long term investments.

Populate the model with real, verified numbers including possibly factoring for utilities cost increase, property tax increases, maintenance/repairs, vacancy, etc.

I live and invest in Joplin MO. with a population of around 60k. and when I turn on the news it is almost impossible to relate to any of what I hear.

Having said that, I would listen to all of the podcasts episodes where the hosts cater to the student population to pick up the basics as well as some nuggets.

I live in a small-ish town with about 60,000 people in the area, and a decreasing population too.

However, it does manage to auto-populate things like tenant name, address, rent amount, etc.

There is a large population of military investors on BiggerPockets, and the single most important thing you can do is start networking.

These areas have had a steady population increase and you have a tenant base from Military, College Students and relocations. 

Doesn't really matter because it's a feature that less than 2% of the entire population will care about.

Population growth, median income growth, proximity to me (somewhat), employment opportunities, price to rent ratio among other factors.