Accessible local alternatives to Amazon Prime
By keeping your spending local, you can also help your neighborhood, town or city recover from COVID-19 impacts more quickly.
building resilient local economies
Envision or perish — why we must start imagining the world we want to live in
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.