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Buy Local, Eat Local . . . Invest Local 41
more jobs in the area. I see this sort of cross pollination all the time
in my neighborhood, where local businesses take pride in offering
Brooklyn- made wares in their shops and restaurants, and you’ll
encounter many examples across the country in the pages to come.
Independent businesses are also the mainstay of local advertising,
helping to keep alive a vibrant local media that covers issues and
politics of interest to the community. In an age of corporate media
consolidation, that can mean the difference between cookie- cutter
content and programming, and useful, on- the- ground news.
Contrast that to typical corporations and chain stores, where
purchasing, advertising, and charitable giving are highly centralized
operations dictated by headquarters. Their models rely on
economies of scale, so they procure from large suppliers who are
tuned to the same model. Their vast supply chains stretch to China
but bypass local vendors. Big corporations also tend to advertise in
national venues and give to national charitable organizations.
Terry Lutes, chief operating offi cer of the Illinois Department
of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, refers to these intangible
qualities as social capital. “If you go to a local Little League
ballpark, you’d see all the kids out there playing,” says Lutes, “and
you would notice that it’s a local establishment sponsoring them.”
(Hmm. Anyone ever seen Team Target?) “We’ve also noticed that
it’s usually the local business people making good on giving to
local charities and supporting local causes,” he adds. Indeed, local
businesses give 2.5 times more to local charities per employees
than nonlocal fi rms, according to one tally. 7
In addition, as members of the community, local business owners
are more likely to contribute in a time of need. A study of assistance
in the wake of Hurricane Floyd in Pitt County, North Carolina,
found that local branches of national chains were less likely than
locally owned franchises to provide assistance to employees adversely
affected by the storm. The national chains were also less likely than
local businesses to contribute to relief and recovery efforts. 8 In Bay
St. Louis, Mississippi, the lone locally owned radio station, WQRZ- LP,
was the only broadcaster operating after Hurricane Katrina, providing
a critical source of news when commercial stations went silent.
A healthy independent business base is also critical to a region’s
tax base. Many large corporations employ sophisticated tax strategies