Buy Local: Shop, Eat & Drink

This holiday season keep your hard-earned dollars in the community and working for you by spending locally.
You can have an impact. Shifting even a small amount of your spending from chains to locally owned businesses can have a major impact on the local economy. According to a new study, in Western Michigan, if the [...]

From Our Inbox: East Campus & College Towns

East Campus Steering Committee meetings have had a number of careful observers. Many agree that three divergent tracks–the university’s goals, the community’s concerns and the developer’s interest in the bottom line–have not coalesced. This may be attributable to a backwards process. The Steering Committee’s work has been akin to a rushed, project-specific visioning process, something [...]

Give a Gift To Our Economy: Shop Locally Owned This Holiday Season

by Stacy Mitchell

Our successful event with Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher with the New Rules Project, a couple weeks ago did not yield viable audio, but we can offer the slide show (you will need to hit pause between slides) and the article below which makes many of the points discussed. And to help you shop [...]

Reminder: Stacy Mitchell on Connecting Retail & Growth to Community

Wednesday, November 28
7 pm Refreshments
7:30 pm Talk & Discussion
Hyattsville City Hall
4310 Gallatin St., Hyattsville MD 301-985-5000
Remember, we invited you? Join us.
As growth in the Route 1 corridor accelerates, what can we learn from other communities? How can we avoid becoming Anyplace USA? Can we use retail as a catalyst for good community development? [...]

You’re Invited: Connecting Retail & Growth to Community

with Stacy Mitchell of the New Rules Project
Wednesday, November 28
7 pm Refreshments , 7:30 pm Talk & Discussion
Hyattsville City Hall, 4310 Gallatin St., 301-985-5000
Given the fast pace of new projects in the Route 1 corridor, we th0ught it might be time for us to step back, draw a breath and look at how [...]

Ann Arbor Lessons

As we contemplate the changes that East Campus will bring to College Park, it is worth learning from other college towns. Insights into a Lively Downtown may provide both ideas for remaking the existing downtown and the correct scale for East Campus. This runs 20 minutes and sometimes states the obvious…on [...]

East Campus: Our Local Economy & Independent Merchants

The East Campus Steering Committee will meet Thursday to discuss uses (residential, retail, hotel & office) and market feasibility. Agendas and materials for this and past meetings are also available, just click on the topic. You may find the market study, though somewhat flawed, and lessons learned from Silver Spring worth browsing. The preliminary [...]

Support a Local Business: Glut Food Co-op

Update: More info from Chris Doyle of Glut in the comments. Many of us know that local businesses give back significantly more to our community and local economy than corporate stores. The next step is supporting those businesses. Both East Campus and the Cafritz developers have mentioned including local businesses in their proposed retail mix. [...]

How about this idea? Economic & Community Impact Review

The most recent set of Cafritz meetings has passed and been memorialized. Rethink College Park has done a nice job of summarizing the meetings for those of us who were on vacation. Supposedly comments will be posted soon on the Cafritz site, however, the various slide shows promised at past meetings would be great.
Between work [...]

Beer, Comprehensive Plans & Retail

OK, that was completely shameless–the beer’s just to get your attention. But it is summer, we know your hammock is calling to you. So get one out of the fridge, let’s talk planning.
This article is reprinted with kind permission from The Hometown Advantage Bulletin, a free email newsletter published by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. [...]