Hartford continues to lose its industrial base, an economic catastrophe in the making characterized by an income base primarily dependent on companies engaged in paper shuffling.

to say that something 'is in the making' is to predict an outcome based on current information.  In this case, an economic disaster is being predicted.

Inchoateknowledge wrote:

something is in the making is a quite frequently used idiom: if someone is an athlete, star, writer, etc. in the making, they are likely to develop into that thing  This young swimmer is an athlete in the making. (Cambridge dic) "an economic catastrophe in the making characterized by an income base primarily dependent on companies engaged in paper shuffling" is not a clause but a noun phrase that is in apposition to industrial base. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apposition

Well it does look like an appositive but does the whole text "an economic catastrophe .....in shuffling papers" is an appositive. And if it is, then it must be with the whole initial text "Hartford continues to lose its industrial base" since industrial base can't' stand for the rest of the sentence. But if that is true then a question arises whether the first and second part of the sentence (both before and after comma) isa noun phrase or not since both should be noun or noun phrase. Please explain.

GB