New Albany grocery coop meeting tonight ... and other NA events.

Steal this graphic...

and then take a moment to visit CoolTown Studios' brief summary of the study from which it was taken. The Urban Conservancy and Civic Economics joined forces to look at two models of New Orleans redevelopment-- one concentrating on local merchants in an urban setting and the other a suburban plan largely devoted to chain stores.

Regular NAC readers can presumably predict the results but more relevant information is always a good thing.

Check out this zinger:

Another conclusion of the study: If New Orleans consumers were to shift 10% of all retail activity from chains to locals, the result would be the equivalent of injecting an additional $60 million annually into the local economy in the form of recirculated dollars that would otherwise have left the area, and $235 million regionally.

It's reminiscent of the number crunching we published previously when looking at local food and grocery distribution.

Local food (and groceries) in the news.

The summer growing season has passed, but interest in local food seems to be heating up.

Much of this interest can be traced to the experience of New Albanians attending the recent Milwaukee leadership training, like Ted, who posts a video you need to watch: Growing Power Inc. Community Leadership Institute, the Power of Urban Farming.

Another attendee sent this link: Urban farms plant seeds of hope; Indy woman fights blight with garden on lot she bought for $500, by Dan McFeely (Indy Star). New Albany has plenty of patches like this one. If John M. is reading, how did the St. Marks garden work out the past summer?

Many of us were there for the grocery coop meeting: New Albany working toward grocery co-op (News and Tribune), and there's a Facebook page for the possibly emerging New Albany Grocery Coop movement.

Do we have any updates from the New Albany Farmers Market? I seem to recall hearing of a proposal to have a winter program of some variety.