In a series of decisions, Loveland, Colorado’s City Council voted earlier this week to take the next step toward developing a municipal broadband network. In addition to allocating funds to develop a business plan, city leadership established an advisory board, accepted task force recommendations, and voted to amended current code to allow the electric utility to handle communications activities.… Read More
In November, ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell and Olivia LaVecchia traveled to Vermont for two events looking at the threat that Amazon poses to Vermont’s local economies. Here’s a roundup of stories in which state and local outlets cited ILSR’s work and provided information about the events in Vermont.… Read More
San Francisco has one-third as many chain stores as the national average. That’s thanks in large part to a city ordinance that restricts “formula” businesses. We talk with AnMarie Rodgers, senior policy advisor to the city’s planning department, about how the city implemented the policy, how it works, and what advice she has for other cities that want to do it too.… Read More
This article was originally published in our The Public Good: Reports from the Front Lines (September 27, 2017), available here. In the beginning there were no fixed prices. Every transaction involved a negotiation between buyer and seller. Then, in 1861, … Read More
On the latest episode of the Building Local Power podcast, Stacy Mitchell talks about the Amazon-Whole Foods deal, how it fits into the company’s long-term strategy, and why the government should have blocked it. … Read More
This week in Building Local Power, we’re discussing independent businesses and the communities that support them. Host Christopher Mitchell and ILSR co-director and Community-Scaled Economies initiative director Stacy Mitchell interview Katrina Scotto di Carlo from Portland, Oregon. di Carlo is the … Read More
ILSR and Jobs with Justice partnered to produce a fact sheet that looks at how Amazon is undermining wages and conditions for working people, and driving growing inequality.… Read More
When shoppers interact with Amazon, they see an innovator. But behind the scenes, Amazon relies on a labor model that looks a lot more like the past than the future. This fact sheet that breaks down how this powerful corporation is undermining working people — and what we need to do.… Read More
Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and co-author of the recent report, “Amazon’s Stranglehold: How the Company’s Tightening Grip is Stifling Competition, Eroding Jobs, and Threatening Communities,” responded to the announcement on jobs made today by Amazon: “Amazon’s jobs announcement this morning has it in the headlines as a job creator. But there’s a dirty secret about jobs at Amazon. As we found in our recent report on the company, as Amazon gains market share, it destroys more jobs than it creates,” Mitchell said.… Read More
