Accessible local alternatives to Amazon Prime

By Nithin Coca, Shareable

By keeping your spending local, you can also help your neighborhood, town or city recover from COVID-19 impacts more quickly.

Envision or perish — why we must start imagining the world we want to live in

By Pamela Haines, George Lakey, Waging Nonviolence

But without a bold vision that’s inclusive and down-to-earth enough to make intuitive sense to the great majority of Americans, not even the best of strategies will be enough to carry the day.

Independent thinking: Why local businesses need our support this Christmas

By Lucia Monje-Jelfs, Sustainable Food Trust

So, if you’re planning on celebrating this Christmas – albeit unconventionally – here are some of the reasons why, now more than ever, independent businesses need your support.

Exploring Transformative Change on the Brink

By Stefan Cristoff, Uneven Earth

Highlighting the term careful is important here: we can view the response of the state to this pandemic with care, we can be careful to see the gaps and address the ways that the state response is lacking. Careful in this context also means taking care and directly engaging with the crisis on a community based level in a safe way.

Putting Power in Its Place

By Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Great Transition Initiative

Perhaps we need to embrace a different kind of power on all levels to provide a timely, effective transformation. Maybe we need a compendium of strategies and practices on all levels to guide an organic and multifaceted cultural shift.

Cool Currencies – The Chiemgauer

By Kester McLennan, Bristol Pound blog

8 years on, the Chiemgauer attracts over 600 businesses and 3000 users, turning over 5 million per year. And this is only the start. Its whopping growth of over 100% per annum means its significance is only likely to grow in the near future.

Monetary Alchemy: How to Turn Bad Money into Good

By Thomas H. Greco, Jr., Open Democracy

The prosperity, resilience and self-determination of a community is greatly dependent on its having an adequate supply of payment media to connect available supplies with basic needs, so the usual scarcity of conventional money needs to be overcome.

Bringing Wendell Berry (and Business) to Sterling

By Russell Arben Fox, In media res

Well, however one construes it, keeping in mind that rebuilding a sense of place will probably also mean rebuilding a sense of mutual obligation between different types of places is an important lesson, I think.

How London is Setting a New Standard for Market Cities

By Annah MacKenzie, Project for Public Spaces

Why are cities like Barcelona and London investing in markets as critical infrastructure? Because they recognize their ability to strengthen local economies, promote physical health and sustainability, and foster deep social connections in the communities they serve.

How a Local Bookstore Can Make your Town Richer — in More than One Way

By Kea Wilson, Strong Towns

But what cities would be wise to do, I think, is to recognize the powerful neighborhood-wide effect of the independent bookstore model, and soften the ground for more small businesses operating, by their nature, on small margins and small bets.

Judy Wicks on Imagination, Entrepreneurship and Local Economies

By Rob Hopkins, Judy Wicks, Rob Hopkins blog

A local economy by nature is more creative because we’re looking to see what does my community need?  What does my place want to be?  And move towards that. 

Citizen-led Economic Transition — a Four Point Framework for Guiding Action

By Jay Tompt, Medium.com

If we’re to radically reduce the size of our carbon and ecological footprint, (something like 80% over the next couple of decades, according to experts,) while adapting to the massive challenges ahead, most of the solutions will be found at local and regional scales. This means people working together systemically to make it happen.