A New Deal for Local Economies

[marmar]

from YES! Magazine:



A New Deal for Local Economies
More local, durable economies are already taking root. We can help them along by changing the way we regulate businesses, plan cities, and finance the communities we want.

by Stacy Mitchell
posted Apr 29, 2010


Let me begin by sharing some good news. Scattered here and there, in my country and in yours, the seeds of a new, more local, and more durable economy are taking root.

The Power of Local



Locally grown food has soared in popularity. There are now 5,274 active farmers markets in the United States. Remarkably, almost one of every two of these markets was started within the last decade. Food co-ops and neighborhood greengrocers are likewise on the rise.

Some 400 new independent bookstores have opened in the last four years. Neighborhood hardware stores are making a comeback in some cities. Most students graduating from pharmacy school report that they would rather open their own drugstore than work for a chain. Last April, even as Virgin Megastores prepared to shutter its last U.S. record emporium, more than a thousand independent music stores were mobbed for the second annual Record Store Day, a celebration of independent record stores that drew hundreds of thousands of people into local stores, became one of the top search terms on Google, and triggered a 16-point upswing in album sales.

Driving is down in U.S. over the last two years, while data from a dozen metropolitan regions show that houses located within walking distance of local businesses have held value better than those isolated in the suburbs, where the nearest gallon of milk is a five-mile drive to a superstore.

In city after city, independent businesses are organizing and building an increasingly powerful counterweight to the big business lobby on issues as varied as tax policy and global warming. Local business alliances have now formed in over 130 cities and collectively count some 30,000 businesses as members. These alliances are calling on people to choose independent businesses and locally produced goods more often, making a compelling case that doing so is critical to rebuilding middle-class prosperity, averting environmental catastrophe, and ensuring that our daily lives are not smothered by corporate uniformity. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/a-new-deal-for-local-economies