February 16, 2009 - In many respects, the nationwide effort to revive local economies is occurring outside the media spotlight. But for reporter Tim Holt, that doesn't make the grassroots movement any less significant -- or widespread. He chronicles Michael Shuman's career and the related local living economies movement in a February 9 article in the Christian Science Monitor.

"For the past five years, [Michael] Shuman has been barnstorming across the United States, preaching the gospel of economic 'localism' ... in countless trips to struggling communities, and in the growing number of small-business associations sprouting up across the country," Holt writes.

This work has put Michael Shuman and his frequent partner organization, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), at "the epicenter of a debate about what's best for the economic health of a community: Locally owned businesses or large, multinational chain stores."

For Shuman, his efforts are "a political campaign that never ends." For many years, Shuman recalls, "economic developers have looked for new wealth from outside their communities and overlooked the huge opportunities in their own backyard."

By contrast, the localization movement offers "an appeal to community values as well as economic self-interest, a call to support locally owned businesses that don't outsource, don't pack up their businesses and leave on a moment's notice, and who recycle their customers' dollars back into the community," says Holt.

Despite its ranks -- over 60 chapters representing tens of thousands of small-scale entrepreneurs -- BALLE is a relatively young organization and is still experimenting with what works for small business. "We're a young movement," says Laury Hammel, BALLE co-founder, noting that it's only been five years since the organization launched its first "buy local" campaigns.

And while these efforts represent an strong start, there is agreement among BALLE's leaders that they must go farther. Specifically, they are demonstrating and addressing the shortcomings of widespread recruitment-and-retention efforts -- and the public policies that have supported this "bigger is better" approach to economic development.

Notes Holt, "Shuman thinks it's necessary to change 'fundamentally misguided' government policies that favor nonlocal businesses. By Shuman's estimate, some $113 billion in tax dollars is spent each year to lure companies into a community, only to have many of them take the money and run in a few years. Why not put the money instead, he says, into building business networks like BALLE and into technical assistance for local entrepreneurs who are much more likely to stay around?"

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