Think, if you will, of Western Tidewater’s economy as a pie.

A big piece is missing with the closure of International Paper Co.’s Franklin mill. What is left cannot sustain a healthy community, at least over the long haul.

Amid our region’s economic despair, there is an exciting opportunity: to bake a new, healthier, tastier pie, with fresh ingredients and, importantly, lots of small pieces.

In baking that pie, let us resolve as a community to never again become dependent on a single employer or a single industry. A pie with many small pieces means there’s always plenty left when one slice goes away.

The potential pieces are numerous — and exciting to ponder.

Heritage tourism, which community leaders are working to develop with such initiatives as a Nat Turner historical tour, is one. Western Tidewater will never draw throngs of mainstream tourists as do Disney World, Williamsburg and the Outer Banks. It can draw a few who are interested in agricultural and civil rights history. The money those visitors spend in restaurants and hotels can make up a small piece of the new economic pie.

Here’s a piece with even greater potential: retirement living.

The interest of full disclosure requires me to note that my wife is employed by the Village at Woods Edge, the Franklin retirement community which continues to prove, even in a difficult housing economy, that people will move to Western Tidewater to retire.

The potential of retirement living as an economic driver is much bigger than the Village, however.

Western Tidewater has much to offer retirees: tranquility, no traffic, plentiful and affordable housing, a low cost of living, and amenities (a full-service hospital, YMCA, country club and libraries, to name a few) that most rural communities don’t have. Access to a metropolitan area is quick and easy when needed — for highly specialized health care, for example.

Retirees, in turn, have much to offer Western Tidewater. They are, for starters, abundant. The huge Baby Boomer generation is retiring, and studies show they will live much longer than have previous generations. Boomers are a growth demographic.

Retirees are ideal citizens. They consume government services at a much lower rate than younger adults. They don’t use the public schools. They generate less garbage. They rarely require the services of law enforcement.

If our hospital, YMCA, libraries and country club are part of the potential lure for retirees, it’s likewise true that a booming retirement population can be the savior of those quality-of-life institutions, all of which have been hurt by middle-class flight from Western Tidewater over the past decade.

Retirees also bring an infusion of volunteerism. Churches and charitable organizations that struggle to find willing workers would have a new pool from which to draw.

Retirees won’t come to the area at the snap of a finger. It will require a broad-based strategy involving many community partners. Aggressive marketing — and dollars to fund that marketing — will be essential. The investment is worth it.

Future columns will explore other potential pieces of the economic pie. Retirement living is one the community should get busy on.