Local Economies + Real Places = Local Democracies by Dennis R. Lieb

The holiday season is upon us and, despite the national economic malaise, we still have friends and loved ones for whom we will be searching the aisles to find that perfect gift. This year especially, make your first stop a locally owned and operated business. Start in the West Ward and work your way out...Downtown Easton, the other neighborhoods, Bethlehem, Allentown, Nazareth, Emmaus, Hellertown and on down the line. Notice I haven't mentioned the suburban Townships. The reason?
They have no walkable downtowns and therefor no unique architecture or civic spaces where people can meet and congregate. These have been replaced (if they ever existed at all) by cookie-cutter movie sets that make every strip mall in Dubuque Iowa indistinguishable from every one in Shreveport Louisiana. Oh, and most Township businesses - even the locally owned ones - require that you have to drive to each and every destination...in other words, they aren't "real places".

Now, more than ever, we need to support our own businesses over the corporately owned malls and national big box pirates. Locally owned businesses have been eating the chains' lunch so far during this recession and one reason is that local businesses have forged personal relationships with their customers that keep them coming back - even in hard times. As we should all know by now, unique products, flexible business models and attention to service are the hallmarks of local, successful businesses and these strengths are reinforced when the big boys cut staff and services to keep the corporate bottom line intact.

This is a link to a quick video from our very own Sustainable Business Network of the Lehigh Valley (www.sbnlv.org). Please take a look at it.

Sustainable Business Network Video on Buying Local

You will recognize some of the faces since many members - like Troy Reynard of Cosmic Cup - are Easton Merchants. I was lucky enough to meet up with the group of people who formed sbnlv a few years ago and became part of the steering committee that formed the organization and one of the charter members as well. There is a slight Bethlehem bias to the video but that is because the most active members are mostly from there right now. No matter...the point is to think locally and buy locally.

I have always believed that the American economy is not only suffering from mismanagement at the federal level but also that the very understanding of how healthy economies work has been lost by most people who should know better. The sad side effect of this is that economies dominated by national chain retail create places that are no longer Democratically governed. So many aspects of what is wrong with Easton and other places like it can be traced to the numbing sameness of national chains and the national economic policies that do not read and react to the feedback these local economies send when they are in trouble because we do not even know how to interpret the data properly.

Please check out the www.sbnlv.org website. You can learn what the benefits to membership are if you are a business owner or how to better support local economies if you are just a citizen looking to improve your town...oh, and stop referring to yourself as a consumer. Its a demeaning term and one that infers all you do is consume goods at the cheapest possible price without considering the real cost of the products to your community or taking any responsibility for your own future.

When you have time, read this transcript about a new deal for local economies at:
New Rules Article on Local Economies

And this story at Project for Public Spaces:
PPS Article on Placemaking

And also take a look at this e-newsletter from The Hometown Advantage:
Hometown Advantage Article
Subscriptions are free.

But most of all, support your local merchants this holiday season.

DRL