This place is a work horse. It grows small businesses from scratch without recourse to bank loans or government subsidies. It provides products and experiences that are genuinely needed in the community. And it costs almost nothing to create.
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Jacqueline Hannah—assistant director at the Food Co-op Initiative—shares how you can start a neighborhood grocery co-op in your town, including how to pitch the vision to community members and elected officials, how to translate your enthusiasm into action, and how the Food Co-op initiative can help through every step of the process.
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Your Strong Towns Knowledge Base question of the week, answered here.
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Jeff Eidson—founder of Explore Elkin—shares story behind the idea Explore Elkin and how listeners can successfully create similar groups in their own cities and towns, including how to find and pitch a shared vision to residents, how to motivate residents stuck in a psychology of decline towards their city or town, and how to use the funds generated towards small bets.
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Joanna Jurgens, Head of Business Affairs at Sofar Sounds, shares how you can foster a local music scene in your community, including how to awaken that DIY spirit that’s so essential to kickstarting a local music scene, how to identify low risk strategies for creating a venue, and how to get local elected officials involved in the process.
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In a “sort-by-price” world, you should be careful getting into a race to the bottom. This applies as much to cities as businesses.
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Strong Towns’s own Kea Wilson discusses what her time as a bookseller at Left Bank Books in St. Louis taught her about making local businesses a third place, including what building a third place actually looks like, how third places are more economically resilient, and how you can make your local business a third place.
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If we want to fix crony capitalism, what we really need is to localize capital.
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In this podcast episode, Chuck interviews Corie Brown, Zester Media co-founder and a writer on the food system, about the depopulation of rural Kansas, as mechanized agriculture reduces the need for farm labor, and the social toll that it is taking in isolated, shrinking towns.
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The less you look like everyone else and the more you look like yourself, the better off you’ll be. This truth should be driving your town’s development. In fact, creating a distinctive sense of place is your competitive advantage.
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We have chosen a rural life—who pays for our infrastructure? The short answer is: we don't have much of it, but we take care of our own needs. Strong towns require strong citizens: people who learn to take control of their lives and do for themselves things that are doable.
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Small businesses are crucial to local economic health. Thriving small businesses create thriving communities, in a virtuous cycle.
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An unlikely town has become a hub for cycling and mountain biking — and it’s paying serious dividends for the community.
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From event venues to wineries to clean energy plants, Native local businesses are blossoming.
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When large storefronts sit empty for years, holding out for the perfect big tenant, while small businesses can’t find space to rent, we’ve got a serious problem.
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A lack of access to land and equity prevents Native communities from gaining real wealth.
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The elements that have made craft breweries successful in American small towns could also spell good news for other industries.
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How did beer turn the consolidation ship around and what can we learn from craft brewing's success?
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Once the "Rubber Capital of the World," Akron, Ohio is rebuilding its economy to focus on small local businesses rather than risky, large-scale gambles.
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In the last 10 years, the number of breweries in America has increased sixfold.
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