Abstract
Economic recovery from disaster is about the resilience of local economies, although it may concern regional or national economics, especially in small or poor countries. Is the aim of recovery simply to restore the pre-disaster state? Or should disasters be embraced as opportunities to make local economies more resilient? Overall economic activity is the normal measure, but we are also concerned with what the activity is doing for the people and enterprises within the region under study – including a range of intangible factors. Depending on our spatial and temporal scales, we may find that economic recovery from disaster is partial at best. We may find that the economy boomed following disaster but that some sectors are left devastated. In some cases, there may be no recovery. We argue that the priority in economic recovery should be on maintaining the economic flows that support the prosperity and activities of the affected area.
