An urgent call to 'buy local'
An urgent call to 'buy local'
Job developer Michael Shuman seeks to rebuild struggling communities with home-grown businesses.
By Tim Holt | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
from the February 9, 2009 edition
For Michael Shuman it was the equivalent of an earthquake. Seeking cheaper labor in Canada, Toronto-based Branscan Corp. threw 1,400 people out of work by closing two paper mills in Millinocket, Maine, in 2002. The unemployment rate in this region of central Maine skyrocketed to Depression era levels of nearly 40 percent.
Mr. Shuman, an economist and job developer, was called in for damage control. Aided by an $8 million federal grant, he and his colleagues at Maine's Training and Development Corp. were able to help most of the laid-off workers get back on their feet. But the experience convinced Shuman to do what any sensible person might do after such a calamity: Build something that's earthquake-resistant.
To him, that involves locally owned businesses.
For the past five years, Shuman has been barnstorming across the United States, preaching the gospel of economic "localism." It's an appeal to community values as well as economic self-interest, a call to support locally owned businesses that don't outsource, don't pack up their businesses and leave on a moment's notice, and who recycle their customers' dollars back into the community.
Shuman describes his effort as "a political campaign that never ends." He speaks mostly in small rural communities, often desolate landscapes with shuttered mills and boarded-up storefronts. His campaign has put him in the epicenter of a debate about what's best for the economic health of a community: Locally owned businesses or large, multinational chain stores.
Shuman views struggling communities as untapped resources: vacant land available for new businesses or existing local businesses that want to expand, the numbers of unemployed people who can be hired by local businesses or who might start their own businesses.
"For years, economic developers have looked for new wealth from outside their communities and overlooked the huge opportunities in their own backyard," he says. "The localization movement encourages communities to take stock of these untapped resources. That's especially important as today's economic downturn increases the pressure on every town and city to do more with less."
He points to the Mount Shasta region of northern California, where a timber faller with a bad back started a successful boat repair business, and to Vermont, where two enterprising young mothers started a business weaving recycled fabric and old clothes into new ones.
Rachel Hooper, one of the owners of Burlington's Bobbin Sew Bar, went to hear Shuman speak before starting her business. "It was really inspiring to hear him talk about how small business owners can play an important and positive role in their communities," she says.
Shuman likes to cite a 2003 study by Civic Economics, a consulting and research firm. It examined what happened to every $100 spent at a chain bookstore and at a locally owned one in Austin, Texas. At the chain, only $13 went back into the local economy. At the local bookstore, it was $45.
Big box chains have raised their profile by spending big dollars. To compete, locally owned businesses are banding together for what one organizer calls "grass-roots guerrilla marketing." These low-budget efforts include posters touting the "Top 10 reasons to buy local" and bumper stickers that say "Buy local or bye-bye local." Discount coupon books featuring local businesses help bring new customers through the door, as do catalogs that list locally owned businesses.
In 2006, New Mexico's Los Alamos National Bank began issuing local "community care" debit cards good only at participating local businesses. Cardholder purchases rack up "community points" good toward additional purchases at local businesses; a portion of their purchases goes to a nonprofit of their choice. The idea has proven popular: One out of every 10 Santa Fe residents uses the cards, according to bank officials.
These and other promotions are being spread around the country through the Business Alliance For Local Living Economies. Founded seven years ago by Philadelphia restaurant owner Judy Wicks and Laury Hammel, a Boston health-club owner, BALLE has grown to include some 60 small business networks in the US and Canada. Shuman was involved in BALLE's formative stages, providing the organization with its intellectual underpinnings. In the next few months, he'll be joining BALLE to work full-time on economic development and public policy initiatives.
The organization is still experimenting with what works for small businesses. "We're a young movement," says Mr. Hammel, noting that it's only been five years since BALLE launched its first "buy local" campaigns.
These grass-roots efforts are a good start, Shuman feels, but he also thinks it's necessary to change "fundamentally misguided" government policies that favor nonlocal businesses. By Shuman's estimate, some $113 billion in tax dollars is spent each year to lure companies into a community, only to have many of them take the money and run in a few years. Why not put the money instead, he says, into building business networks like BALLE and into technical assistance for local entrepreneurs who are much more likely to stay around?
Shuman's "small business is beautiful" campaign has few detractors. After all, the small grocer who knows his customers' names, the hardware store owner who can find just the right widget for you, are icons of retail Americana.
But traditional economic thinking embraces the value of big business, the notion that large concentrations of capital and labor are necessary if consumers want inexpensive cars, refrigerators, and computers.
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Remise du "Prix REEL Hérault" 2008 à des lycéens de Lodève
L’association REEL
Hérault a remis son prix 2008 à une équipe du lycée
Joseph Vallot de Lodève pour récompenser sur travail
sur un projet de lycée durable. REEL Hérault
s'implique depuis sa création en 2006 dans la
promotion du développement durable et de l'économie
locale.
Le 30 mai à 11h, à la mairie de Lodève, Le Prix REEL
Hérault 2008, d'un montant de 1 500 €, a été remis
par les entrepreneurs membres de ce réseau
d'entreprises à l'une des équipes du lycée de Lodève,
en présence de Madame le maire, de Madame le
proviseur, des entrepreneurs membres du REEL Hérault
et de représentants notamment, du lycée, de la
mairie, de la Région et des médias locaux.
Pour Raphaël Souchier, président du REEL Hérault, un
véritable développement durable n'est possible
qu'avec une forte implication des entreprises et la
mobilisation des jeunes générations. C'est pourquoi
les membres du réseau ont décidé cette année
d'attribuer leur prix annuel à l'une des équipes de
ce lycée en pleine mutuation - il va bientôt passer
de 500 à 1100 élèves et sera reconstruit par la
Région dans l'esprit du Développement durable. Le
projet de l'équipe lauréate serait distingué sur la
base du thème "un lycée durable au coeur de son
territoire", ainsi que de sa qualité et des
partenariats établis - dans et au delà du lycée -pour
le mener à bien.
Le jury a sélectionné pour le 1° prix le projet porté
conjointement par les élèves d'un classe de terminale
BEP Electricité et d'une classe de bac professionnel
éleec (électricité, électrotecnique). Le défi que se
sont lancé ces deux classes était d'étudier et de
concevoir un système de
récupération des eaux de pluie
pour faire face aux besoins autres que celui d'eau
potable, dans deux bâtiments du lycée. Ils ont retenu
trois solutions techniques, entre lesquelles les
responsables du lycée pourront choisir pour la
réalisation effective d'un tel système.
Le second prix, offert par le lycée, est la
participation au concert de Grand Corps Malade, lors
du festival des Voix de la Méditerranée. Il a été
remis à 6 élèves d'une classe de 2°, qui ont ensemble
réfléchi à la
conception et à l'architecture du futur lycée
de Lodève.
Les autres équipes, composées d'élèves - souvent
assistés de leurs professeurs et/ou de professionnels
ou d'associations spécialisés - avaient travaillé sur
divers projets: la conception du futur CDI du lycée,
celle d'une centrale de production photovoltaïque,
d'une remorque pédagogique sur les énergies
renouvelables et enfin d'un système de diagnostic
énergétique.
Le jury, composé de représentants des entreprises du
réseau, de l'Education nationale, de la région et de
la mairie, a souligné la qualité et l'implication des
équipes tout au long de l'année.
Tous les élèves ayant participé au prix (6 équipes
des lycées classique et technique) sont conviés à
participer à une journée de visite du centre
expérimental d'architecture de Cantercel, et de
rencontre avec les architectes de ce lieu qui, depuis
plus de vingt ans contibue à la réflexion
internationale et à la réalisation de projets
d'architecture et d'urbanisme.
Madame
LeBolloch, proviseur du lycée, a rappelé que les
propositions concernant la réalisation du futur
lycée seront présentées par la direction du
lycée et la Région à l'équipe d'architectes à
qui sera bientôt confiée la création du nouvel
établissement. Après avoir rappelé l'engagement
de la municipalité et de la Région pour la
réussite du projet d enouveau lycée, Madame
Bousquet, maire de Lodève a conclu la
manifestation en saluant les entreprises du
réseau REEL Hérault pour la qualité de leur
travail d'animation économique au service du
développement durable de ce territoire.
La matinée s'est terminée autour d'un buffet composé
de produits du terroir, préparé par les paysans de la
boutique de producteurs "A travers champs".
Photos: S.
de Rudder
