The "Buy Local" Push: Spiking the Small Business Economy

What is all this hoopla about "Buy Local" really mean?  I've see ads for it on the T.V. and just a few hours ago I heard an advertisement on an internet radio station based in Canada!  Even Time magazine and the Wall Street Journal have joined the pool by publishing several articles touting the positive side-effects of this "vision of the future economy."   A specific article written by Judith Schwartz states:

"At the most basic level, when you buy local more money stays in the community. The New Economics Foundation, an independent economic think tank based in London, compared what happens when people buy produce at a supermarket vs. a local farmer's market or community supported agriculture (CSA) program and found that twice the money stayed in the community when folks bought locally. "That means those purchases are twice as efficient in terms of keeping the local economy alive," says author and NEF researcher David Boyle."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1903632,00.html#ixzz1ihw6fKIU

Coming from a small central New York community and running a small business here,  I not only understand how important it is from a financial perspective but also from a "connectedness" stand point.  Community stays connected via contacts and the only way to make contacts is to stop by a local small business to full fill a need rather than run home and hit the internet.  Its a simple choice that has far reaching benefits.

In my community (and surrounding communities as well) we have many groups that work to provide local consumers with local buying options and incentives for doing so.  The largest is a non-profit called Syracuse First.  This young organization (June, 2009) uses both savvy technological approaches as well as plain-old grass roots movements to get their messages to the masses.  With over 3,000 Facebook fans and thousands more as Syracuse First members, one can't help but be impressed!  


So is globalization just a dream?  Can we get off of this economic roller-coaster ride driven out of control by global economics or are we destined to the same ill fates as the combined economic conditions of the volumes of nations that surround us?  Maybe the answer is local economics do have a profound effect.  Maybe...just maybe to become a truly self-sustaining nation we must first look locally.  After all, it was what our founding fathers fought for, the right of independence in all things, starting with our communities. 


I'll close with a quote I swiped from the Syracuse First website that sums up the message I'm trying to convey here:

  “Going local does not mean walling off the outside world. It means nurturing locally owned businesses which use local resources sustainably, employ local workers at decent wages and serve primarily local consumers. It means becoming more self-sufficient and less dependent on imports. Control moves from the boardrooms of distant corporations and back into the community where it belongs.”- Michael H. Shuman, author of Going Local