What Does Local Mean? and Who Values it?

The local movement which includes buying locally grown food, shopping from local vendors and stores and focusing on small rather than big business has become an enormous movement in the U.S. as well as much of Europe. The sense of “indigenous” sourced items is now a big part of what consumers everywhere are looking for. Many consumers want something uniquely branded, one of a kind and from their town.

The motivation to protect what’s unique to a specific community, a region, or a particular street has come as a reaction to the mass influx of generic chain stores in the last 30 years. In fact, if you go to the modern American suburb there just isn’t any unique local business to buy from. The Target store, Trader Joe’s, Radio Shack, Burger King, Game Stop all may be real choices consumer’s want but they are literally the only choices they have. The irony is that the branding of these stores, the types of experiences they create  are what consumers look for otherwise they wouldn’t be in business. Malls and chains will always be part of the mix but when a Memphis mall is the same as suburban Detroit and the same as Orlando it’s all too cookie cutter – where are the original thinkers, the innovators and risk takers who create something new?

The creative bubble of new retail is on the edge

Having just come back from Portland I was struck by the city’s unbelievable focus on small business and local small retail. And I mean really small. In central Portland one of a kind has really taken off with the food wagons. Unlike other cities that have tried to limit the food wagons that show up at lunch and beep their musical horns Portland has opened up parking lots and allowed these food merchants to set up semi-permanent shops. It’s awesome! Right next to Portland State University in a virtually useless parking lot there are at least 20 food vendors packed side by side selling everything from chicken and waffles to falafel to Vietnamese fried noodles.

Across the river on Mississippi Street, once a marginal neighborhood with little retail is now exploding with amazing new businesses: green coffee bean retailers, beer gardens with sand patio’s, bike repair shops, used book stores, recycled housewares and bike bags made from used banners. It’s a virtual mecca of entrepreneurs trying new ideas, new products and new ways of doing business. These more marginal neighborhoods are where exciting and interesting things are happening. Cities like Oakland with an explosion of new restaurants in the once empty downtown. Brooklyn NY where both food manufacturers and retailers are staking out new territory things are really happening.

I don’t think chain stores will every go away and they actually shouldn’t they serve a specific purpose and give lots of folks options for cheap stuff but they also will not take the big risks to be in these areas on the urban edge. This is for the start ups, the innovators who look for what they can bring to the community. Local means champions of innovation and taking a risk where chain stores don’t see opportunity. This is where local really takes off and Darwin was right with evolution: it’s the small niches where opportunity thrives and grows.