Creating an Economic Forecast for the City of Bristol

The Problem

The City of Bristol rests on the border of Virginia and Tennessee, just miles away from Bristol, TN and Kingsport, TN. Although the City of Bristol is small, its elected officials are proactive in planning their city’s future. As employment in many small metropolitan areas is expected to contract, Bristol’s government officials decided they needed credible data on how economic and demographic trends will impact the City of Bristol.

In 2019 they hired Chmura’s consulting team to produce an economic forecast for the City of Bristol—a forecast they could use to inform Bristol’s future.

The Solution

The Chmura team leveraged our experience as Blue-Chip economists to produce a forecast for Bristol that analyzed trends in demographics, economics, and tax revenues. Our forecast helped Bristol…

• Understand demographic trends that were expected to impact Bristol’s industry growth, including an aging population, slowing population growth, and migration patterns of young millennials to larger metro areas.
• Identify which industries are expected to continue growing, so Bristol could target them for economic development efforts.
• Project their tax revenue based on the national, state, and local economic and demographic trends. We projected the city’s real estate, personal property, local sales, meals, lodgings, and BPOL taxes in our analysis.
• Plan for a recession. Although in early 2019 a recession in 2020-2021 seemed unlikely, the Chmura team included an alternative economic and tax revenue forecast in case of a recession. This projection became relevant when the United States entered a recession in February 2020.

The Chmura Difference

At Chmura we believe you shouldn’t need a PhD in economics to understand your local economy. We also understand that economic data can seem overwhelming. That’s why our consulting and software teams work together to provide economic data and analysis so everyone can make informed decisions that help your community thrive. 

We are proud to partner with the City of Bristol. Do you need help with an economic forecast?  Contact us about our consulting services today.