Immigration is part of the history of every American city. But experts say that in recent years, some towns and cities, reeling from shifts in the economy and declining populations, have focused anew on potential economic benefits from refugee resettlement, even as immigration has become a subject of partisan political battles.

“Over the last couple of decades, especially in the last 10 years, places have started to develop strategies to attract and retain immigrants and resettle refugees in order to boost their economic activity,” said Audrey Singer, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who has studied refugee resettlement in American cities.

Refugees are a small subset of immigrants, and many cities that have made a point of welcoming them say that they do so primarily for humanitarian, not economic, reasons. But as cities in the Rust Belt, like Pittsburgh and Dayton, Ohio, and in other parts of the country, like Maine and upstate New York, set up offices to connect immigrants and refugees with services and job opportunities, advocates say economic benefits have arisen as a result.

“We’ve seen a few neighborhoods kind of turn around because of immigrants and refugees moving in,” said Melissa Bertolo, the coordinator for one such support group, Welcome Dayton. She added that cities in the Rust Belt are “all looking at how immigrant integration plays a part in the revitalization of a city.”

That is what some are hoping for here in Rutland, as the state suffers from population stagnation, according to Art Woolf, an associate professor of economics at the University of Vermont. The birthrate has declined and net migration has slowed, which Mr. Woolf ascribed to Americans’ increasing preference for cities and dense suburbs.

“I think we’re right on the beginning of the cusp of serious, serious labor problems,” said Mr. Woolf, who added that the state’s unemployment rate, at 3.6 percent, was a sign of more trouble to come. “We’re low because there’s nobody available to work.”