Locally owned businesses play a central role in healthy communities and are among the best engines that cities and towns have for advancing economic opportunity and building resilient places. Here, we outline five important reasons for local officials to support independent businesses, based on a growing body of research.… Read More
When independent businesses meet with their local officials, they help build the mindset that independent businesses matter. A new Local Policy Action Toolkit created by ILSR with the Advocates for Independent Business coalition offers independent business owners and retailers concrete tips for engaging with their city officials and advocating for policies that strengthen and grow local businesses. By advocating for policy change, independent business owners can help create a stronger local economy.… Read More
In this episode, Vermont gets some love from our various policy experts! Stacy Mitchell, Christopher Mitchell, and John Farrell sit down to talk about the ways in which local self-reliance is thriving in The Green Mountain State, check out the details on how Vermont enables small businesses, renewable energy, and local Internet connectivity.… Read More
Amazon is framing itself as a boon for entrepreneurs, but in fact the company’s increasing dominance of the consumer goods market is having a profoundly negative impact on the nation’s small and mid-sized businesses.… Read More
Small businesses are sometimes criticized as being bad for workers — but that idea is wrong. In this piece, we look at how small and large businesses compare on concrete metrics like wages, and find that in some industries, including retail, employees at small businesses earn more. There’s also a larger way in which the interests of small businesses and working people are aligned, we argue: Both groups benefit when public policy works to disperse economic power.… Read More
Monopolies are strangling competition and cutting off opportunity. In this feature for The Nation, we show how to stop them. … Read More
This cover feature for The Nation looks at how Amazon is a radically new kind of monopoly with ambitions that dwarf those of earlier empires, and what we should do about it. … Read More
Directly north of Springfield, Missouri, sits Hermitage, a rural community of less than 500 residents. With only a few more than 200 households in Hermitage, it isn’t surprising that none of the big incumbent providers want to install the infrastructure … Read More
In this episode of the Building Local Power podcast, ILSR’s Christopher Mitchell and Stacy Mitchell talk about entrepreneurship — both how it’s plummeted in recent years, and how to bring it back.… Read More
