This toolkit offers independent business owners concrete tips for engaging with their city officials and advocating for policies that strengthen and grow local businesses. The featured policy platform outlines policies local governments can use with on-the-ground stories of communities that have implemented these policies to support independent businesses.… Read More
When you choose locally owned businesses for your shopping, you create a ripple effect. Our new infographic shows what happens when you shop local — starting with you.… Read More
ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell is interviewed on the Local Bites Podcast. She lays out the evidence against the growing consolidation of economic power in the hands of a few global corporations and exposes the policy decisions that have led us down this path. She highlights several promising initiatives from the growing localization movement, and outlines the key components of a ‘localist policy agenda’. … Read More
Last month, San Francisco’s Office of Economic Analysis issued a new study concluding that the city’s policy restricting the spread of chain stores is harming the local economy. But the OEA’s sweeping conclusion rests on bad data and a deeply flawed analysis that misses many of the benefits of independent business. In this article for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, we detail exactly how the study gets it wrong.… Read More
Our first podcast is with Stacy Mitchell, the heart and soul of our Independent Business and Banking Initiatives. Stacy talked with Lisa about the Initiative and the focus of her current projects. She also offered some strategies for supporting independent business and influencing policy that will strengthen our local economies. The podcast is just over 13 … Read More
Here are the ten short-and-sweet reasons why supporting independent businesses is critical to the well-being of our communities and our economy.… Read More
Choosing a locally owned business generates almost four times as much economic benefit for the surrounding community as shopping at a chain, a new study has concluded. … Read More
The results of a new study suggest that the key to reversing the long-term trend of stagnating incomes in the U.S. lies in nurturing small, locally owned businesses and limiting further expansion and market consolidation by large corporations.… Read More
Perhaps we’re not doomed to an economy controlled by a few giant corporations after all. A growing number of signs suggest that local, independent businesses might just be making a comeback.
Inspired by the Harper’s Index, we’ve compiled a list of key indicators of a return to the local. … Read More
