South Dakota law requires the state to purchase goods and services only from companies that collect sales tax on all sales in the state. Continue reading
Independent businesses in two dozen cites joined forces to urge residents to "unchain" themselves on Saturday, November 20, by patronizing only locally owned stores and restaurants that day. The event, dubbed America Unchained, was organized by the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA). The goal, according to AMIBA’s director Jennifer Rockne, was to broaden awareness of the local economic benefit of choosing to shop at locally owned businesses instead of chains. Continue reading
A group of California state lawmakers, led by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, are calling for the legislature to require that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) sell its 18.8 million shares of Wal-Mart stock, valued at about $1 billion. "The Legislature needs to take a close look at how we put our money behind our values," Lieber told the Associated Press. "Wal-Mart is making a big push to expand in many areas of our state. Continue reading
Voters in Hudson, Ohio—a community of 23,000 people thirty miles southeast of Cleveland—overwhelmingly rejected a ballot initiative that would have opened the way for big-box stores and allowed developers to skirt the town’s development review process. "We are ecstatic," said Liz Murphy, owner of the Learned Owl bookstore and member of Smart Growth Hudson, a citizens group that formed to defeat the initiative. Continue reading
Counties that gained Wal-Mart stores during the 1990s fared worse in terms of family poverty rates than those that did not, according to a new study by researchers at Penn State’s Center for Economic and Community Development. Wal-Mart often characterizes its stores as beneficial to the working poor. Continue reading
Chicago’s locally owned businesses generate 70 percent more local economic impact per square foot than chain stores, according to a new study. The study, conducted by the firm Civic Economics, analyzed ten locally owned restaurants, retail stores, and service providers in the Andersonville neighborhood on Chicago’s north side and compared them with ten national chains competing in the same categories. Continue reading
A coalition of organizations in Austin, Texas, released a report this week that concludes that big-box retailers impose significant costs on the community. It recommends that the city scrutinize big-box projects more thoroughly and adopt a long-range plan to strengthen locally owned businesses. The report reviews and refutes several of the findings of another big-box study commissioned by the city and released in June. Continue reading
Newsstand owners in New York City have filed a legal challenge to a new law that would transfer ownership of the city’s 300 independent newsstands to a single corporation. Under the law, which was backed by the mayor and endorsed by all but three city councilors, the eclectic newsstands will be replaced by identical kiosks under central ownership. Five companies, including JCDecaux, which manages "street furniture" in 3,500 cities worldwide, are bidding for the contract. Continue reading
A new report prepared for the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission concludes that retail development costs cities more in public services than it generates in revenue. The report, produced by Randall Gross of Development Economics in Washington, D.C., reviews and summarizes the findings of fiscal impact studies conducted in eight central Ohio communities between 1997 and 2003. Continue reading
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case early next year that could set new limits on the ability of cities to condemn and take property for private redevelopment projects. There have been many cases in recent years where local governments have seized homes and small businesses to make way for chain retail development. In downtown Port Chester, New York, for example, bulldozers are currently leveling a 27-acre site that once housed numerous small businesses. Continue reading
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