This bill would require that, when reviewing bids for contracts of $150,000 or more, "the state purchasing director or the head of the purchasing agency shall consider the state economic impact of the bid as a component of the cost assessment of the bid." Continue reading
California state law grants local, independently owned, small businesses a 5 percent preference when competing for state contracts. The law also sets for state agencies a goal of making at least 25 percent of their purchases with small businesses.
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Big-box stores offer lower prices right? Not necessarily, says Stacy
Mitchell, who talks about the big-box swindle and the demise of the
American middle class in this interview on San Francisco’s KFOG.
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An overflow crowd of hundreds turned out yesterday at a New York City Council hearing on the impact Wal-Mart would have if allowed to expand into the city. ILSR’s New Rules Project was invited by the Council to testify as part of the first panel of speakers. Here’s what we said about the impact Wal-Mart would have on New York. Continue reading
For the fourth year in a row, a national survey of independent businesses has found that those in communities with an active "buy local" campaign have experienced markedly stronger revenue growth compared to those located in areas without such a campaign. Continue reading
A groundbreaking new study, the Indie City Index, ranks all 363 metropolitan areas in the U. S. according to the vitality of their independent retail sectors. Continue reading
The good news is that overall sales at independent retailers grew by about 4 percent. The bad news is that chains grew faster and independents still lost market share, falling from 31 to 28 percent of retail spending. That decline in market share, however, was considerably slower in this five-year period than the preceding 20 years. Digging deeper into the new data, we found a number of interesting trends. Continue reading
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to spend a day in Detroit meeting with local entrepreneurs and sharing ideas for spurring small business development. I came away feeling that Detroit has quite a bit to teach the rest of us about how to build a local economy from the ground up. Continue reading
These graphs illustrate the shifting market share of chain and independent retailers between 1982 and 2007, as well as the growing share of spending captured by Walmart. Continue reading
Throughout most of the city, including all of San Francisco’s Neighborhood Commercial Districts, formula retail stores and restaurants are considered conditional uses. This means they must be approved by the Planning Commission on a case-by-case basis. In evaluating whether to grant a permit for a formula business, the Planning Commission considers several criteria, including the existing concentration of formula businesses within the neighborhood, whether similar goods or services are already available, and the balance of neighborhood-serving versus citywide- or regional-serving businesses. In additional, formula retail and restaurant uses are prohibited outright in several neighborhoods. Continue reading
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