Anticipate, withstand and bounce back. That was the message to the region’s civic and business leaders at the Western Nevada Development District’s Resiliency Workshop held Nov. 13 at Storey County’s Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center.
The shocks and disruptions of today’s economic landscape can range from extreme weather, natural disasters, industry closures or declines, and major data breaches.
Speakers Brett Schwartz, Associate Director of the National Association of Development Organization’s Research Foundation, and Tonya Graham, Executive Director of the GEOS Institute, led the workshop on how to identify vulnerabilities and create the tools for a quick recovery.
Planning and building a resilient community is a key component to WNDD’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy or CEDS program. This locally-based, regionally-driven economic development planning process engages a range of partners, including community leaders and residents, tribes, the private sector, educational institutions, and other stakeholders. A completed CEDS enables regional entities to seek financial assistance from public and private funding sources for development projects within the region, based upon the CEDS’ strategies and projects.
“Economic resilience is a combination of initial response, quick recovery and longer-term initiatives to bolster capacity that can help a region withstand a disaster or downturn,” Schwartz said. “Regional thinking really works in this situation because you share similar risks and hazards and vulnerability in one county or city can impact another.”
The explosion of new businesses locating at Storey County’s Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center is a perfect example of one county’s economic initiatives and growth creating a region-wide foot print, he said.
Shocks and disruptions impact all five community “systems,” said Graham.
“Human health and safety; natural ecosystems, economic, or local business; the built community resources and our cultural resources all have to be considered,” she said.
Climate change and its impacts are a front-burner challenge for many regions but can also be an opportunity for creating new industries and opportunities. Reducing greenhouses gasses can also be a pathway to positives, like generating your power source locally, she said. The GEOS Institute has launched the Climate Wise program to help communities to adapt strategies to deal with climate change.
“Economies are truly regional in nature,” said Sheryl Gonzalez, Executive Director of Western Nevada Development District. “Resilience has become the new normal and our CEDS planning has to recognize and respond. We want to be able to build back better.”
Participants in the workshop were the WNDD communities: the seven counties of Carson City, Churchill, Douglas, Mineral, Pershing, Storey and Washoe as well as the cities of Fallon, Fernley, Lovelock, Reno and Sparks who are engaging in the CEDs process.
Workshops will continue throughout early 2020 to address regional issues and build the planning and recovery tools for a successful regional economy, Gonzalez said.
