For many years, big box retailers were enthusiastically embraced by small towns. Companies like Walmart and Home Depot promised new jobs, more tax revenue, and a second chance for communities struggling to stay afloat while mines and paper mills closed and crop prices fell. The stores themselves were symbols of prosperity, stocked high with abundance. Their very presence seemed to assure a permanent place on the map.
But now, more than a decade after the big boxes began multiplying nationwide, a small but growing number of communities are saying "no" to new chain store construction, and instead rebuilding their Main Streets and local businesses.

	Stacy Mitchell is a researcher with the New Rules Project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. She is the author of The Home Town Advantage: How to Defend Your Main Street Against Chain Stores and Why It Matters. (Photo courtesy of Grist Magazine)

Small Town Economics

Part of what's driving this shift is a growing awareness of how important locally-owned businesses are to small-town economies. Most small towns cannot support both a vibrant downtown and a superstore. Many studies and years of experience have found that the arrival of a big box usually forces dozens of local businesses to downsize or close. The resulting job and tax losses often equal, and sometimes even exceed, the gains from the new development.

Trading locally-owned businesses for chain stores sends a ripple effect through the rest of the town's economy. Local stores usually support a variety of other local businesses. They bank with the local bank. They advertise on local media. They create opportunities for service providers like accountants and printers. A diagram of a healthy small-town economy would reveal a web of interconnected relationships. The grocer deposits his receipts in the local bank, which lends money to the farmer, who in turn sells her produce to the grocer.

National chains recycle a much smaller share of their revenue back into the local economy. They bank with big national banks. They bypass local media in favor of national advertising. They have no need for services like accounting. With a big box dominating a small town economy, the diagram changes markedly. More money flows in only one direction - out.

Building Community

Perhaps more important than the economic benefits, locally-owned businesses build strong communities.

Local stores are the lifeblood of downtowns. Their survival ensures that a community's historic buildings and traditional core continue to be a vital part of everyday life. Unlike big box shopping centers, downtowns support multiple uses, from retail stores to post offices and parks. They create a coherent center that can draw all members of the community together. They foster walking, congregating, and chance encounters with neighbors -activities essential to maintaining the quality of life and sense of connection and community in small towns.

But it's not just the structure and scale of Main Street that matters. There is a community value to doing business with our neighbors. Their kids go to school with our kids. Their taxes support local services. They are often actively involved in civic and cultural organizations. Unlike distant corporations, their decisions - whether to sell produce from local farms, pay a living wage, or contribute to a local charity - are more often than not informed by both the desire to make profit and the needs of the community.

Regeneration

Often we fail to recognize the value of something until it's nearly gone. This has certainly been true of locally-owned businesses, which have undergone a sharp decline over the last two decades. Thankfully, many towns across the country are beginning to realize what's at stake.

Some, like Easton, Md. and Taos, N.M., have adopted new planning policies that favor small, centrally-located stores and prohibit big box development on the outskirts of town. Others are revising their economic development programs to no longer focus on luring distant corporations, but on strengthening homegrown entrepreneurs. And many are investing in Main Street improvements and launching education campaigns to encourage residents to buy local.

These steps can help ensure that locally-owned businesses continue to be a vital and thriving part of small town communities.

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Stacy Mitchell is a researcher with the New Rules Project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. She is the author of The Home Town Advantage: How to Defend Your Main Street Against Chain Stores and Why It Matters, and produces an electronic newsletter on community efforts to support locally owned businesses. For more information, visit www.newrules.org.