More than almost any other factor, a community’s planning and land use laws and policies affect its success in supporting small, locally owned businesses.
Most people are familiar with the damage Wal-Mart, Target and other"big box" retailers have done to local economies. Across the country, these giant stores have...
The newly published Sustainable Food Retail Framework aims to help cities struggling with a lack of grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods better balance the need...
In a new report titled "Clone Town Britain," the London-based New Economics Foundation warns that the country’s town centers are rapidly being overrun by chain...
The last issue of this Bulletin reported on a grassroots effort in Petoskey, Michigan to stop a 400,000 square foot chain retail development in a...
By now, many community leaders recognize that when chain retail sprawls unchecked, main street loses, not just jobs and businesses, but the very essence of...
In May, Vermont became the seventeenth state in the nation to close a loophole that major chain retailers are using to evade paying state income...
Puerto Rico’s Department of Justice has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to block Wal-Mart’s acquisition of the island’s largest grocery...
As big box stores and chain retailers consume more and more undeveloped land, polluted runoff from their parking lots is placing an ever greater burden...
Developers have announced plans to construct well over 2 million square feet of large retail stores in Maine over the coming months. Wal-Mart is planning...
Little-noticed laws in more than half the states allow retailers to keep a portion of the sales taxes they collect from shoppers. The practice is...
An Ohio pastor leads the charge against the dollar store invasion in his community.
Doing so would ease budget shortfalls and restore a measure of fairnessfor small businesses, which lack access to these loopholes and end upshouldering a heavier...
In his State of the State address, Vermont Governor James Douglas proposed closing a tax loophole that gives national chains an advantage over local businesses....
Home Depot wants to build one of its giant stores with a multiacre parking lot on the corner of Lexington Parkway and University Avenue. The...