Thursday, June 12, 2014

ON THE AVENUES: As a journalist and entrepreneur, I’m not tired of the “Buy Local” argument. Not at all.

ON THE AVENUES: As a journalist and entrepreneur, I’m not tired of the “Buy Local” argument. Not at all.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Back in 2010, one of my locally-written columns for the Alabama-owned newspaper, which these days is “local” primarily to Jeffersonville alone, asked the question, “Can ‘shift happen’ in New Albany, too?”

(Those scraping, clanking, stevedore sounds you hear are CNHI wagons being circled. It’s the one tip they never, ever miss.)

But have no fear; today’s essay has nothing whatever to do with newspapers, because it’s all about localism – and by virtue of its corporate ownership, the newspaper simply ain’t. With your indulgence, I’d like to revisit my 2010 piece, with a few relevant updates.

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In the better (craft) beer business, we have creatively adapted an old activist mantra to suit our specific circumstances: “Think globally, drink locally.”

American “craft” beer is a locally brewed adult beverage. It is not to be confused with mass-produced, conceptually derivative swill from multinational manufacturing corporations like AB InBev or MillerCoors, which currently seek to foist the word “craft” on unsuspecting drinkers via misleading marketing tactics that might make Moons appear Blue, and cause even Herr Goebbels to cringe.

Genuine American “craft” beer is best consumed locally, with folks who share the vision and dream the dream, and as a locally loyal revolutionary, I do my fair share of sampling. Indeed, quality control is a never-ending task. To my delight and edification, the ongoing revival of downtown New Albany allows me to drink local beer quite locally – when merited, copiously – and still walk home afterward in a physically beneficial and socially responsible manner.

In fact, my family’s decision in 2003 to buy the midtown house we currently occupy was consciously calibrated with drinking, dining, walking and bicycling in mind. Mind you, this was before there was much of anything downtown to walk or bike to. Local independent businesses have rectified the situation, largely without governmental subsidies of the sort generally fluffing Chain Land. It’s enough to gladden a tea partier’s heart -- if you can pull him away from the culinary glories of Chick-fil-A.

You see, it wasn’t “luck” that enables my strolling and biking. It was planning, stemming from solid, traditional, locally-based principles of life indigenous to urban areas originally built for precisely these same purposes. At one time such notions were the accepted norm. Now they are being rediscovered by New Albany’s residents old and new, and the city’s rising indie business community.

“Thinking globally” provides wonderful insights into successful strategies pursued in differing environments. As an example, in 2010 my family reunion was held in Concord, Massachusetts, and during the course of rooming, dining and watering options in the Boston metropolitan area, we chose to stay in Somerville, a community just to the north of downtown Boston.

Apparently, such is the taste for Somerville self-identity (of course, the city’s residents still cheer for the Red Sox) that it has a “buy local first” movement: Somerville Local First. Consider the way that Somerville’s business community defines its mission.

Overview: There is a movement coming....a return to local and the emergence of sustainable economies. We're at the epicenter....Shift Happens

Mission: Somerville Local First, formed in March 2008, is a network of locally owned and independent businesses to build a robust Somerville economy and a vibrant community.

We accomplish this by:

-Organizing a Somerville Local First campaign that raises the awareness of customers, businesses, and government agencies regarding the benefits of purchasing from locally owned businesses.

-Implementing programs and discounts that reduce the cost of doing business for locally-owned businesses. Bringing together independent businesses for mutual benefit and networking opportunities.

-Supporting Somerville ordinances and regulations that promote locally owned businesses.

-Collaborating to deliver programs to help local businesses become greener in their business operations.

Products: Organizing, supporting, strengthening and promoting locally-owned, independent businesses in Somerville, MA. Educating customers about the benefits of shopping locally.

www.facebook.com/SomervilleLocalFirst

New Albany’s locally-minded group is called New Albany First, with goals mirroring Somerville’s. Across the river is the older, more established Louisville Independent Business Alliance (LIBA). LIBA’s goal of keeping Louisville “weird” in a sense of uniqueness and independent ownership is shared by many businesses on the Indiana side of the river.

Glancing to the east, beyond the Interstate-driven, exhaust-perfumed franchise purgatory of Clarksville, another “buy local first” model also exists. Jeffersonville Main Street actively seeks to organize its business community, and wastes no opportunity to espouse these core “buy local first” principles. On the other hand, New Albany’s main street organization, Develop New Albany, openly concedes that it would gaily promote Wal-Mart if Wally World coughed up the requisite membership fee. That’s horrid, if pathetically typical of a what happens in the absence of principle.

Why does any of this matter? The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (www.ilsr.org) offers these ten vital commandments. The sooner New Albany grasps them, the better, but slowly, the shift indeed is happening.

1. Protect Local Character and Prosperity
New Albany is unlike any other city in the world. By choosing to support locally owned businesses, you help maintain New Albany’s diversity and distinctive flavor.

2. Community Well-Being
Locally owned businesses build strong neighborhoods by sustaining communities, linking neighbors, and by contributing more to local causes.

3. Local Decision Making
Local ownership means that important decisions are made locally by people who live in the community and who will feel the impacts of those decisions.

4. Keeping Dollars in the Local Economy
Your dollars spent in locally-owned businesses have three times the impact on your community as dollars spent at national chains. When shopping locally, you simultaneously create jobs, fund more city services through sales tax, invest in neighborhood improvement and promote community development.

5. Job and Wages
Locally owned businesses create more jobs locally and, in some sectors, provide better wages and benefits than chains do.

6. Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship fuels America’s economic innovation and prosperity, and serves as a key means for families to move out of low-wage jobs and into the middle class.

7. Public Benefits and Costs
Local stores in town centers require comparatively little infrastructure and make more efficient use of public services relative to big box stores and strip shopping malls.

8. Environmental Sustainability
Local stores help to sustain vibrant, compact, walkable town centers-which in turn are essential to reducing sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and water pollution.

9. Competition
A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term.

10. Product Diversity
A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based, not on a national sales plan, but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees a much broader range of product choices.

Who could ever tire of localism when localism makes so much sense?

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