Resilient Economy

A community’s econ­o­my com­pris­es all of the eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty that both sup­ports and relies upon the liveli­hoods of its res­i­den­tial pop­u­la­tion. A strong econ­o­my depends on con­tin­u­al local invest­ment and active pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion of goods and ser­vices. A com­mu­ni­ty with a Resilient Econ­o­my is pre­pared to deal with both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive changes in its eco­nom­ic health as a result of unfore­seen cir­cum­stances or exter­nal events. To build a Resilient Econ­o­my, a com­mu­ni­ty must max­i­mize reliance on local assets so as to lessen the neg­a­tive impact of uncon­trol­lable exter­nal eco­nom­ic forces through care­ful, flex­i­ble and cre­ative devel­op­ment. Indi­ca­tors of a Resilient Econ­o­my include thriv­ing busi­ness­es and com­mer­cial areas, the capac­i­ty of a munic­i­pal gov­ern­ment to pro­vide pub­lic ser­vices and make nec­es­sary infra­struc­tur­al updates, bal­anced and sus­tain­able land use and devel­op­ment pat­terns, and strong dis­as­ter recov­ery processes.

Over the past few decades, New Castle’s econ­o­my has fared well through changes in the polit­i­cal, finan­cial, envi­ron­men­tal and cul­tur­al cli­mates, as well as through a num­ber of notable and iso­lat­ed events. Over­all, the com­mu­ni­ty has recov­ered finan­cial­ly from the eco­nom­ic impacts of the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis, the Sep­tem­ber 11^th ter­ror­ist attacks, and Super­storms Irene, Floyd, and Sandy, to name a few exam­ples. This chap­ter estab­lish­es goals that will enable New Cas­tle to strength­en its econ­o­my through devel­op­ment of local assets and place-based, sus­tain­able revitalization.