Local Economy

The Walmart Effect

December 26, 2024 Rogé Karma, Portside. Educate! Local Economy, Poverty, Walmart, Worker Rights

No corporation looms as large over the American economy as Walmart. It is both the country’s biggest private employer, known for low pay, and its biggest retailer, known for low prices. In that sense, its dominance represents the triumph of an idea that has guided much of American policy making over the past half century: that cheap consumer prices are the paramount metric of economic health, more important even than low unemployment and high wages. Indeed, Walmart’s many defenders argue that the company is a boon to poor and middle-class families, who save thousands of dollars every year shopping there.

Expanding The Possible, From Below

November 19, 2024 Alexandria Shaner, Resilience. Strategize! climate crisis, Green New Deal, Local Economy, Municipalism

Less than one week after a self-proclaimed dictator, climate change denier, and big oil-funded billionaire (among other equally impressive accolades) took the single most powerful political office in the world, it seems like a horrible time to release a book about the Green New Deal. Thinking back to 2018, not so long ago in time but perhaps much longer in space, to when the Green New Deal was launched into public attention as a bold proposal for transformative national legislation, is frankly, beyond depressing. Loss, grief and rage compete with numbness and shock, easily overwhelming any effort to fathom where we were then, and where we find ourselves now.

Baltimore Is Setting A National Standard For Diversifying Its Economy

November 8, 2024 Ilana Preuss, Next City. Create! Baltimore, Local Economy, Manufacturing, Maryland, Worker Rights and Jobs

One of the crucial economic lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic is the importance of diversifying local economies, even in America’s largest cities. New York City continues to struggle with an economy too heavily reliant on tourists and commuters; Las Vegas saw its entertainment industry shut down when out-of-state visitors stopped traveling; vacant storefronts are prominently visible in major business districts and on main streets nationwide. Diversifying often implies attracting new industries by luring them from elsewhere – often a zero-sum game, if the industries are simply shifting locations within the United States.

Demanding More In The Struggle For Collective Liberation

October 31, 2024 Austin Cole, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Black Liberation, International Solidarity, Local Economy, New Economy, Pan Africanism

This is the second and final part of of a two-part interview series coming from a conversation that I had with Nick in April as part of my recently completed masters thesis (see Part I here ). Because the conversation was so insightful and I couldn’t include most of it in the thesis itself, I’ve decided to publish a slightly-edited version of our conversation, in two parts. In this second part, Nick and I discuss local organizing strategy, international solidarity through Pan-Africanist principles, and the applicability of a People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework to municipal work — all with an eye toward what Black/African Liberation looks like materially, locally.

A Tale Of Two Yarn-Makers Reviving The Local Mill

September 3, 2024 Marissa Tiel, Resilience. Create! Local Economy, Small Business, Sustainability, Textiles

For nearly a decade, the Spinsters were a fixture at the Bellingham Farmers Market. Their booth was easy to find: market goers just needed to look for their brightly coloured yarns in vibrant cyan and deep magenta. Founders Kate Burge and Rachel Price commuted to the market by bike — neither one owned a car at the time — and set up most Saturdays. The duo, who named their company Spincycle, specialized in a type of craft practised by few others in the early 2000s: kettle-dyeing and hand-spinning wool into beautiful skeins. Unlike most commercial yarns, which are spun and then dyed, the yarn Burge and Price create is dyed first, before it’s spun into yarn.

Tompkins County, The Finger Lakes Hub Of Sustainability

June 22, 2024 Dave Rollo, Resilience. Create! Environment, Local Economy, New York (NY), Sustainability

The Finger Lakes region of western New York State is distinguished by a series of long and narrow glacial valleys, dammed by moraine, that now contain lakes. Glacial scouring created some of the deepest lakes in North America, including Seneca, Cayuga, and Skaneateles lakes. These spectacular natural features give the region its identity. The region features ample farmland and forest and a relatively sparse population. Tompkins County, in the heart of the region, has experienced a steady 0.5% per year increase in population. But nearly all the surrounding counties have stable or slightly declining populations.

Court Decision Opens Door For Communities To Reject Dollar Stores

April 28, 2024 Kennedy Smith, Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Resist! Dollar Store, Legal System, Local Economy, Louisiana

Towns and cities have broad authority to reject dollar store development if they believe it is not in the best interest of the health, safety, and welfare of residents, according to a court ruling in a little-noticed case last November. This could be welcome news to communities pushing back against the explosive growth of dollar stores. Chains like Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Family Dollar are targeting communities all over the US, expanding at an unprecedented pace. The number of chain dollar stores has soared over the past decade, putting one within a five-minute drive of almost every American.

‘New Economies’ And The Rebuilding Of Democratic Power

March 2, 2024 Jonny Gordon-Farleigh, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Strategize! Democracy, Finance and the Economy, Local Economy, Transformation

In September 2023, I joined the New Economies gathering in Rotterdam, hosted by the international philanthropic fund Partners for a New Economy. Convening 180 ‘changemakers’ from across Europe and the US, it was an opportunity to catch up on the latest developments across a movement to redesign the economy, with sessions on the impact of inequalities between the Global North and South, the consequences of international debt and currency hierarchies, the disruptions of AI technologies, and tensions surrounding the extractive role of private capital in green infrastructure investment.

It’s Time To Act Locally To Address Racial Wealth Inequality

March 1, 2024 Natasha Hicks, Next City. Create! Local Economy, Racial disparities, Systemic Racism, wealth inequality

As we close out Black History Month and the celebration of the many invaluable contributions Black people have made to the U.S., we must also reflect, acknowledge and confront one of the most pernicious issues that has faced generations of Black Americans: racial wealth inequality. Black people have never been able to fully realize the power and freedom that wealth affords since throughout history they have had their wealth systematically blocked or stolen. Despite having the deck stacked against them, generations of Black Americans have been able to save, buy land, start businesses and create their own economic engines.

How ‘Chamas’ And Mutual Credit Are Changing Africa

January 27, 2024 Shaila Agha, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Africa, Local Economy, Mutual Aid, Nonmarket Economy, Unbanked

If I say that the Sarafu Network is a mutual credit network that allows trading without conventional money, that includes 50,000 households across Kenya and did $3 million worth of trade last year – how’s that for a brief description? Yeah, actually we’re up to 52,000, and last month we had 4200 new users registered. What kind of traders are they? Mostly food / agricultural produce. Food sellers and farmers. And what’s your role there? I’m the incoming director, dealing with business development and funding.

Explaining The Commons Economy

January 21, 2024 Dave Darby, Resilience. Create! Commoning, Commons, Finance and the Economy, Local Economy

What Is The Commons Economy? It’s an economy in which the essentials of life – housing, energy, land, food, water, transport, social care, the means of exchange etc. are owned in common, in communities, rather than by absentee landlords, corporations or the state. Commons have 3 parts: a) resources / assets, b) ‘commoners’ – local people who control and use them, and c) a set of rules, written by the commoners, so that they’re not lost, by being sold or used up. We’re not talking about ‘open access’ public goods like the oceans, atmosphere, sunlight or rainfall or ‘anything to do with building community’, but commons based on the principles laid out by Elinor Ostrom in Governing the Commons.

Community Economies: Reframing Wealth Building

January 11, 2024 Thomas Klaffke, Resilience. Create! Capitalism, Community Control, Local Economy, Wealth

Our current wealth-building system is based on individualism and therefore elitism. We’re totally focused on this idea of competition, on “beating” the opponents and gaining leverage against others to “win”. Those who outrun their competitors “lead” the race and therefore become the “leaders”. Society envies those who “made it”, who, through gaining competitive advantage, made a fortune and can now enjoy status, power, and independence points that seem almost unreachable for the ordinary person who feels stuck in the daily rat race. “The dominant narrative around leadership in many areas of the world centers individualism over solidarity.

Solidarity Economy And The Economics Of Abundance

December 28, 2023 Institute for New Economic Thinking, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Economic Democracy, Local Economy, Solidarity Economy

How do we transform societal structures and pave the way to economic democracy? Professor Jessica Gordon-Nembhard explores the potential of cooperatives and solidarity economics as pathways towards economic democracy and justice. Drawing on historical examples from the civil rights movement and the Knights of Labor in the 1880s, Gordon-Nembhard demonstrates how cooperative economics can counteract the exploitation inherent in capitalist systems. She underlines the importance of communal ownership and shared decision-making as mechanisms for wealth redistribution, arguing that such models can liberate communities from economic exploitation.

The Community-Driven Climate Solutions Making A Difference

November 30, 2023 Hollie Russon Gilman and Amy Eisenstein, Next City. Strategize! climate crisis, Community Control, Democracy, Local Economy

To many of us, thinking about climate change brings about existential dread, panic, or even climate anxiety. The largest ever U.N. climate change conference of the parties, COP 28, will occur this week — and many of us are hoping against hope that the world’s leaders come up with a solution for us all. Climate change, though, is hyperlocal. So, too, are many of the solutions. And cities are tackling climate change with an inspiring vigor that, alongside global leadership, could help to reduce emissions and foster a healthier planet. Ordinary people have been at the heart of these local movements. Among these solutions are citizens’ assemblies, which bring together a randomly selected group of people in a community to deliberate on a societal challenge and identify policy solutions.

Four Winning Models For Building Community Wealth

October 10, 2023 Deb Nelson, Next City. Create! Community Ownership, Economic Justice, Frontline Community, Local Economy

If we’re ever going to have a just economy, we’ll have to build it from the ground up. Flowing resources to front-line communities that face the worst of the climate crisis and the racial wealth gap is the ideal way to plant the roots of a new economy. Not only is it essential for justice, but it’s also a practical, scalable strategy for seeding system change. As executive director of the Just Economy Institute, I’ve collaborated with many JEI fellows who are leading promising community wealth-building initiatives. These financial activists share a set of principles: They support community self-determination and ownership.

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