By Guest Commentator Patty Cantrell
Posted on July 18, 2008

It is 1974 in Springfield, Missouri, and they are still showing movies downtown at a theater on the city's Park Central Square. I am 10 years old, and my sister and I are thrilled to be out on that sweltering summer night with our very cool Aunt Robin and Uncle Romie. We're off to see Herbie the Love Bug Rides Again. The smash Disney hit is about a lovable, racing-striped Volkswagen Beetle who saves a little old lady and her historic home from the wrecking ball of "progress."

Bright colors, loud crashes, and daring escapes will make an impression on any kid. But it is the moral of Herbie's story—that people and place matter—that has kept the little VW zooming around my mind through the years. He roared in again just a few weeks ago when I sat down with some 500 hometown business leaders at the sixth national convening of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).

The BALLE conference had both Herbie and me doing wheelies! I was thrilled to learn that so many people I met, representing many more folks back home, are starting a new kind of progress: rebuilding neighborhoods and local businesses in their own towns. — read more 

By Guest Commentator Amy Kedron
Posted on June 27, 2008

To be sure, many urban neighborhoods are in dire need of development resources. But there is a difference between "economic development" and "community economic development." The former is often driven by private interests, primarily for private gain; the latter is community-driven and aims to empower communities.

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) has long tried to walk the fine line between private interest and public benefit, as it has helped provide billions of dollars to low income communities. But at a recent Urban Forum I attended in April, LISC's invited speakers – and LISC itself – appeared to be veering far from community development. — read more 

Posted on May 28, 2008

I was tempted to fire off a letter to the editors at Fast Company, suggesting a better fact checker before they publish commentaries like Elizabeth Spiers' "Not So Fast: Neighborhoodlums" (June 2008, p. 128), the latest mass-media sneer at local-first campaigns. But it finally dawned on me that the piece actually contains no facts whatsoever.

I almost feel sorry for Spiers, a fast-rising blog queen who writes gossipy pieces about the New York business scene. Someone made her feel damn awful about not buying local – "I can't help but think that death and dismemberment are implied if I don't buy the sweater knit by area hipsters or locally grown produce" — and now she has decided to punish the rest of us for it. So a note to her follows. — read more