by Michele Asch For the second year in a row, Burlington faced a significant budget shortfall. The shortfall reflects both rising costs and a decrease in revenue. Burlington’s economy didn’t just “slow down” in 2024 and 2025, it shrank. Meanwhile, the towns around us grew.
This moment is not just about closing a gap in a single budget year. It reflects a slowing economic base, declining sales in key sectors, and rising costs that outpace growth. If we treat this as temporary, we miss the larger message. Burlington is not alone in this. Cities across the country are navigating similar shifts, declining downtown activity, changing work patterns and evolving consumer behavior. The way people live, work, and spend time has changed and many urban communities have not fully caught up.
Through my work with Building Burlington’s Future and conversations with community leaders, residents, and business owners, one concern is clear: Burlington’s economic foundation is weakening.
Sales activity across meals, alcohol, lodging, and retail, sectors that generate a significant share of Burlington’s local option tax revenue, declined in 2024 and 2025. Together, these categories generate more than $10 million annually for Burlington’s general fund. Even a modest decline in activity translates directly into fewer resources for core city functions.
When our economy contracts, Burlington faces limited options: reduce services, defer investment, or increase taxes and fees on residents and businesses already under pressure. Over time, this creates a cycle: declining economic activity leads to higher costs per resident, which drives up taxes and fees and further erodes the city’s foundation for growth.
There is an important distinction between balancing a budget in the near term and resolving the deeper misalignment between what the city spends and what it can sustainably generate in revenue. If we want to close the gap, without relying on higher taxes and fees, we must focus on the revenue side of the equation.
When people choose to come downtown, to stay longer, to spend more, revenue follows. Increasingly, these choices are driven by experience. Cities that are thriving today are engaging, welcoming and alive with activity. Burlington cannot cut its way to vitality. We have to grow our way back to it. Growth done well and thoughtfully is what makes a revenue base durable.
The path forward is not just about what we manage. It’s about what we make possible.
Burlington has reimagined and reinvented itself before. In the early 1980s, civic leaders and visionary entrepreneurs created Church Street Marketplace, re-anchoring downtown economic and civic life for decades. In the 1990s, investment in our waterfront gave public access to Lake Champlain. These efforts helped transform Burlington into one of the most vibrant and livable cities in America.
Burlington has an opportunity. Our natural environment, cultural assets, and scale position us to build a high-quality, experience-based economy. A city that draws people in to live, visit, and deepen their connection to place.
First, we must make Burlington predictable for investment. Permitting needs to be clear and timely. Processes must be transparent and focused on supporting strategic growth. Entrepreneurs and developers must know what to expect and feel supported by city leadership. Uncertainty does more than slow projects; it increases costs, discourages investment, and sends opportunities elsewhere. We are seeing that today. Investment is not disappearing; it’s going elsewhere.
Second, housing and workforce policy must move together. Economic vitality depends on people being able to live here. When families and individuals cannot find housing, employers struggle to hire, businesses limit growth, and economic activity slows. Expanding housing strengthens neighborhoods, supports local businesses, and broadens the tax base needed to sustain city services.
Third, public safety must be part of the conversation, not as a political talking point, but as a foundation of a functioning city. Downtown is both our economic engine and civic heart. Violent crime has declined in Burlington, and that is welcomed and important. But focusing only on violent crime misses what residents and visitors are actually experiencing day to day. What people feel is shaped more by property crime and theft. Addressing safety in a way that is effective, humane, and grounded in results that improve people’s lives is essential to restoring that confidence. Safety is not separate from economic vitality; it is foundational to it.
Fourth, Burlington needs to evolve to meet the moment. Burlington already has the building blocks of a strong, modern economy. Our natural environment, cultural institutions, and educational ecosystem are not incidental; they are core economic drivers. Lake Champlain, the Flynn Theater, the ECHO Leahy Center, Champlain College, and UVM bring people into the city, support local businesses, and contribute to a dynamic workforce. Continued investment into civic infrastructure, including the renovation of our public library and new high school, reinforces this foundation.
In the year ahead, Building Burlington’s Future will bring together business leaders, policymakers, and community members around one central question: how do we rebuild Burlington’s economic foundation without raising taxes and fees or cutting vital city services?
That means focusing on the kinds of experiences that draw people to visit, stay, engage, and return: enhanced waterfront activity, festivals, a dynamic music scene, visual and performing arts, and culinary experiences that deepen connection to our beautiful, soulful city.
Burlington is at a turning point. We can continue down a path of rising costs and constrained services, or we can choose to rebuild a stronger, more resilient economic foundation.
We have done it before, and we can do it again.
By focusing on growth and building on the unique strengths of our city, we can create an economy that powers local businesses, sustains essential city services, and renews confidence in Burlington’s future.
This is not about ideology. It is about stewardship and the responsibility to ensure Burlington remains a place people choose, again and again, to live, work and gather.
Michele Asch is chair of Building Burlington’s Future and a longtime Burlington resident.
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