The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) recently released Strengthening Economic Resilience in Appalachia, a new study identifying factors common across communities experiencing persistent economic growth in the aftermath of the 2008 Recession and other economic disruptions. The research includes a statistical analysis of key factors common to economic resilience, as well as a guidebook featuring ten communities that have rebounded after experiencing significant economic shocks.
 
To quantify economic resilience, 35 measures of demographics/mobility; economics/ industry; and community/health were analyzed in the Technical Report. With this analysis, each of Appalachia's 420 counties was given a "resilience score". From there, researchers conducted further analysis and field interviews to identify commonalities across counties with higher resilience scores. 

These strategies include: 

 

--Investing in education, technology, infrastructure and broadband;

--Engaging the community over the long-term;

--Growing youth engagement and next generation leadership;

--Identifying and growing the assets in the community and region;

--Building networks and fostering collaboration;

--Moving multiple sectors forward for economic development and growing value chains; and

--Cultivating entrepreneurs and developing resources for business start-ups.