In this 20-minute talk, ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell looks at why cities need independent businesses, and also at some of the issues that are facing these businesses today — and why cities need to use public policy to respond.
“Ownership matters,” Stacy notes in the talk, citing research that quantifies the benefits of a strong local economy. “Communities that possess a degree of economic self-reliance are also in a better position to solve problems, to take care of one another, to be places that are connected by a network of relationships.”
“There are things affecting local businesses that are driven by the market here, but then there are other forces at work. Things that don’t really have to do with what our needs are locally,” Stacy continues. “That’s really what public policy should adjust.”
Stacy gave this talk in September at an event organized by Portland Buy Local, the independent business alliance in Portland, Me. The event was inspired in part by ILSR’s April 2016 report, “Affordable Space: How Rising Commercial Rents Are Threatening Independent Businesses, and What Cities Are Doing About It.”
Watch the video from Stacy’s talk, below.
If you like this talk, don’t miss two more from the same event: ILSR’s Olivia LaVecchia on 6 specific policy strategies that cities can use, and AnMarie Rodgers, Senior Policy Advisor to the City of San Francisco Planning Department, on how San Francisco implemented its formula business policy and how well it works.
