Local Business Development

The newly published Sustainable Food Retail Framework aims to help cities struggling with a lack of grocery stores in low-income neighborhoods better balance the need to quickly fill the gaps (a mandate that often favors large supermarket chains) with the advantages of fostering development that delivers more long-term stability and greater economic, community, and environmental benefits (a framework that favors local business). More

A new, independently owned grocery store has risen in the place of what had been a run-down, sparsely stocked market in the small town of Williamsburg, Pennsylvania (pop: 1,345).

Two hundred miles away, another new independently owned grocery store is opening. This one is in a low-income, African-American neighborhood in North Philadelphia, which has been without a supermarket for ten years.

Meanwhile, one of the oldest farmers markets in the country, which has operated in the center of Lancaster since the 1730s, recently took steps to stay in business for years to come by upgrading the systems in its 19th century building.

All of these projects were made possible by the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, a four-year-old, statewide grant and loan program for grocery store development. More

Two years ago, retail developers in Austin, Texas, began meeting with the AIBA, a coalition of some 300 locally owned businesses, to talk about ways that they could work together to bring more independent businesses to both neighborhood and downtown redevelopment projects, as well as new shopping centers.

The developers reported that, largely because of AIBA's buy local campaign, their market surveys were finding that residents wanted to see more independent businesses and fewer chains in their projects.

The problem was that the developers did not have a way to find local entrepreneurs looking for space. Most developers work with national and regional leasing brokers who have rolodexes full names like Starbucks, Blockbuster Video, and Barnes & Noble. No similar mechanism exists to connect independent business owners with developers. More

According to newly released data from the American Booksellers Association (ABA), 97 new independent bookstores opened in 2006.

The 2006 openings followed the launch of nearly 90 bookstores in 2005.

"2005 was the first year in memory that there were a significant number of new store openings," said Oren Teicher, the ABA's Chief Operating Officer. "From the mid-1990s until then, you could count the number of new bookstores that opened each year on one hand." More

Astute urban observer and activist Jane Jacobs died this week at the age of 89.

Among her many accomplishments, she mobilized her neighbors and led several successful grassroots fights in the 1960s that saved Greenwich Village, Soho, Little Italy, and the Lower East Side from being leveled for glass towers and an eight-lane highway dubbed the Lower Manhattan Expressway. More

Local business owners across the country are coming to the aid of their counterparts in the Gulf Coast by establishing funds to provide direct assistance to independent businesses affected by the hurricanes.

One fund has been set up by Small Business California, in partnership with several statewide and local small business groups. Working through the Louisiana Business & Industry Association and the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, the fund is providing grants to small businesses affected by the disaster. More

When Ames, a chain of discount department stores in the northeast, went belly-up last year, closing all of its 327 stores, towns like Middlebury, Vermont, were left with no place to buy many basic housewares like sheets and shower curtains. Residents began driving north to Burlington or south to Rutland to shop.

Concerned about hemorrhaging retail sales, city officials called in RKG Associates, an economic consulting firm. RKG concluded that Middlebury consumers are spending nearly $7 million elsewhere each year. More

"It's been a remarkable success," says Ken Witzeling, who helped start a community-owned department store in the small town of Powell, Wyoming. Known officially as Powell Mercantile and more informally as The Merc, the store is the third community-owned department store to open in this region of the country since 1999.

It is unlikely to be the last. Witzeling has received numerous inquiries from small towns throughout Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and Idaho. More