“Shop Local.”
That cannot be said often enough. Shop local, and keep the money stream closer to home.
Studies show when buying from independent, locally-owned businesses rather than from nationally-owned businesses, more local money is used to make purchases from other local businesses, service providers and farms. Thriving local businesses, of course, also means jobs, wages, taxes and good connections.
Other studies have revealed disturbing results of the intrusion of huge, national chain stores into cities, which can drain the vitality and economic survival especially of smaller cities and rural areas in a wide geographic area.
Studies of local start-up businesses show a decline in the number of them in relation to the coming of fewer and larger “big-box” companies.
Here is worrisome news from a study by the Brookings Institution:
Though start-ups occupy a large place in the U.S.’s present tech-fueled imagination, new business formation has in fact been in steady decline. This study from researchers at the Brookings Institution and Ennsyte Economics quantifies this decline, finding that during the three decades between 1978 and 2011, the share of firms less than one year old fell by nearly half. This slump has accelerated in recent years in what the authors term a “precipitous drop” since 2006, which they call “noteworthy and disturbing.” In fact, the authors find, “the number of business deaths now exceed business births for the first time in the 30-plus year history of our data.” The study determines this trend isn’t geographically isolated, and that business dynamism has declined in all 50 states and in all but a handful of more than 360 U.S. metropolitan areas.
Thus, the writing is on the wall. Do you want your cities and neighborhoods to thrive? Then shop locally as often as you can.
In addition to a positive circularity of money staying locally, there are other reasons to patronize local businesses. They tend to support local non-profit groups that help the quality of life in cities to thrive; they provide unique character and “personality” to a town; they reduce environmental impact by often using products close to home; they provide jobs (small businesses are by far the creators of most jobs locally and nationally); they are accountable on a one-to-one basis with customers; and they tend to be more loyal and want to stay in cities where they are supported.
To make a long story short, “Shop Local” means contributing dollar-by-dollar to local, hometown prosperity and the quality of life we all enjoy.
