News Roundup › Community Economics

The stakes are high as the city finds it needs much more than great restaurants and the bawdy Bourbon Street scene to wine and dine itself to economic prosperity.
But there is no master vision for rebuilding New Orleans’ economy.

Source: AP Wire

“Ambitious projects will be put on hold, but I don’t think they’ll throw away the blueprints,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “A lot of inner cities are going through a bit of a renaissance for broader demographic reasons that will remain in place for a while. Aging baby boomers are becoming empty nesters and they’re thinking of moving back to the urban core.”

Source: Business Week

Devastated by the subprime mortgage crisis, hundreds of homes have been foreclosed and thousands of residents have been forced to move, leaving in their wake a not-so-pleasant path of empty houses, unkempt lawns, vacant strip malls, graffiti-sprayed desolate sidewalks and even increased crime.

Source: CNN

So what are intelligent responses to our predicament? First, we’ll have to dramatically reorganize the everyday activities of American life. We’ll have to grow our food closer to home, in a manner that will require more human attention. In fact, agriculture needs to return to the center of economic life. We’ll have to restore local economic networks — the very networks that the big-box stores systematically destroyed — made of fine-grained layers of wholesalers, middlemen and retailers.

Source: Washington Post

“Small business is too important to the state’s economy for policymakers to ignore it.”

Source: City Business

For years, New Yorkers have grown basil, tomatoes and greens in window boxes, backyard plots and community gardens. But more and more New Yorkers like the Wilkses are raising fruits and vegetables, and not just to feed their families but to sell to people on their block.

This urban agriculture movement has grown even more vigorously elsewhere. Hundreds of farmers are at work in Detroit, Milwaukee, Oakland and other areas that, like East New York, have low-income residents, high rates of obesity and diabetes, limited sources of fresh produce and available, undeveloped land.

Source: New York Times

“Last week, I had to get a part for my kitchen overhead vent,” said Dan Rubchinuk, 26, of Putney, shopping for gloves and a coffee press Friday at Brown & Roberts. “I call here and they spend five minutes on the phone with me. I call Home Depot and spend 15 minutes on hold while the person tries to figure out what I’m talking about.”

Source: msnbc.com

First, the summit planned for the N.O. two years back was meant to showcase the rebuilt Big Easy, a monument to can-do Bush-o-nomics. Well, it is a monument to Bush’s leadership: The city still looks like Dresden 1946, with over half the original residents living in toxic trailers or wandering lost and broke in America.

Source: gregpalast.com

The recent uptick in big-box projects and proposals in the Crescent City, fueled by tax subsidies and other costly giveaways, has left owners of smaller home-grown businesses in related industries gritting their teeth and bracing for hard times.

Source: Times-Picayune

“It is only fitting that New Orleans’ favorite beer sponsors and supports this showcase for New Orleans’ unique cultural heritage,” said David Blossman, president of Abita Brewing Co. “We’re glad to do our part to help keep the French Quarter Festival the largest free music festival in the South.”

Source: City Business

FOLC said the Lafitte Greenway will encourage economic revitalization; create transportation alternatives, such as walking, biking and connections to transit; improve public health; and promote cultural tourism by connecting to neighborhood attractions.

Source: City Business

The open-air center will include a 140,000-square-foot Lowe’s Home Center, another 200,000-square-foot anchor, two other 100,000-square-foot anchors and 650,000 square feet of other assorted retail and a movie theater… . The New Orleans-based developer is still finalizing the development’s total costs, but the TIF bonds will provide some percentage of that cost, he said. Last summer, Kailas estimated a total cost of $200 million.

Source: City Business

Investigative reporter David Cay Johnston explores in his new book how in recent years, government subsidies and new regulations have quietly funneled money from the poor and the middle class to the rich and politically connected.

Source: Fresh Air

“Ultimately, we need to make the connection at the policy level of what these commercial corridors and micro-businesses mean to the economy,” Eness said.

“What would happen if the large government grants awarded as part of the recovery effort had been broken up and given to these businesses? What kind of transformation would we see then?” Eness asked.

Source: Times-Picayune

Today, though, Wal-Mart’s influence over the retail universe is slipping. In fact, the industry’s titan is scrambling to keep up with swifter rivals that are redefining the business all around it. It can still disrupt prices, as it did last year by cutting some generic prescriptions in the United States to $4. But success is no longer guaranteed.

Source: MSN

Available free to the public at www.bigboxevaluator.org, the web-based interface allows users to learn about commercial and retail development in general, but also to input specific information from their communities and receive customized reports on economics, values, planning and municpal services, and ways to improve the development process.

Source: The Orton Family Foundation

Now, Ms. Birk said, the city is nurturing the cycling industry, and there are about 125 bike-related businesses in Portland, including companies that make bike racks, high-end components for racing bikes and aluminum for bikes mass-produced elsewhere. There are small operations that make cycling hats out of recycled fabric. Track, road and cyclo-cross races are held year-round, and state tourism groups promote cycling packages. There is Ms. Birk’s firm, which had two employees in Portland in 1999 and now has 14. There are nonprofit advocacy groups and Web sites, including www.bikeportland.org, that are devoted to cycling issues and events in Portland.

Source: The New York Times

KB Home, which once announced a 3,000-home subdivision project in the New Orleans area and later abandoned it, is leaving Louisiana altogether. Clint Szubinski, president of the company’s Gulf Coast division, said residents are rebuilding instead of buying new homes.

Source: City Business

A dozen boats, remnants of a commercial fishing fleet that once numbered 150 vessels, have returned to their historic home in Bucktown for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.

Source: Times-Picayune

Third-generation owner Mike Massey said that locally owned Massey’s Outfitters, which offers a line of back-packing, camping, canoeing, kayaking, and other outdoor equipment, has three existing locations in Baton Rouge, Covington and on Severn Avenue in Metairie. To date the Severn store has doubled as the company headquarters. That store will remain open, but all administration will be moved into the city, along with 20 to 30 jobs.

Source: Times-Picayune

Yet what Wal-Mart does not disclose in site fights—but is revealed for the first time in a new report by Good Jobs First—is the extent to which the company later in effect concedes the point about reduced property values. Once a store has been in operation for a while, Wal-Mart frequently challenges the assessed value that local officials assign to it for tax purposes. In an effort to cut the property tax it pays to local governments—revenue that pays for public education, police and fire protection and other vital services—Wal-Mart routinely tries to belittle the value of its own facilities.

Source: Corporate Research Project

“My family has owned and operated grocery stores since 1960,” said Rouse, “but these will be our first locations in New Orleans itself. We are very happy that A&P chose to work with a Louisiana-based independent instead of a national chain. It’s important to the rebuilding process of south Louisiana that local companies like ours invest in our state.”

Source: City Business

Rouses, an independent family-run company, … currently operates 16 stores in Louisiana, including four in the metro area. The chain has been eager to step up its presence in the New Orleans area and its involvement in the region’s post-Hurricane Katrina recovery.

“Who better than us to do it?” asked Donald Rouse, president of the company. “I don’t think a chain from out-of-state can come in and understand what’s going on, and we understand it and live it.”

Source: The Times-Picayune

Thanks to new and returning businesses opening in 2006, retail sales tax collections in Orleans Parish are emerging from a steep post-Katrina decline. Sales tax collections in Orleans Parish made big gains in January and February compared with the same period in 2006, while revenues for that period declined in Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes.

Source: City Business

Rubensteins, a men’s and women’s specialty clothing store in a historic site at the corner of Canal Street and St. Charles Avenue, plans to invest more than $2 million to redesign and expand the 12,000-square-foot store.

Source: City Business

Between 1990 and 2005, the amount of store space per capita in this country doubled, while consumer spending grew at less than half that rate. The predictable result is that the U.S. is now home to thousands of dead malls and vacant-strip shopping centers. City planners are not the only ones alarmed. “The most over-retailed country in the world hardly needs more shopping outlets of any kind,” advised PricewaterhouseCoopers in a report to real-estate investors.

Source: Grist

Pease said the representative, an attorney for Victory, mentioned possible tenants but said no commitments had been made. But he gave examples including a 190,000-square-foot Target, an 80,000-square-foot Dick’s Sporting Goods, an 80,0000-square-foot Bed Bath & Beyond, a 50,000-square-foot bookstore and a 27,000-square-foot junior anchor.

Source: Times-Picayune

The metro area is riddled with boarded-up remnants of McDonald’s, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Burger King and Wendy’s locations while their locally owned counterparts are open for business.

Source: City Business

Society has a word for driving off in someone’s car without their permission: stealing. Society has a term for going door to door collecting money for charity, but then spending it on Britney Spears videos: obtaining money under false pretenses. Somewhere between those two lies my considered judgment of an audio consumer who takes advantage of a local dealer’s having paid rent, having paid salespeople, and having paid to put inventory on display, who derives genuine benefit from those expenditures, and who then buys from a no-service channel on the basis of lower price—or who uses a dealer’s time and money to decide what it is he wants to buy used, off the Web.

Source: Stereophile

The $1.5 million in grant money will be distributed over five years to four neighborhood commercial districts. They are: Oak Street, from Carrollton Avenue to the levee; St. Claude Avenue, from Elysian Fields Avenue to Press Street; North Rampart Street, from Canal Street to Esplanade Avenue; and Oretha C. Haley Boulevard from Philips Street to the Pontchartrain Expressway

Source: Times-Picayune

Wal-Mart’s specific approach to reducing the growth of its health insurance costs centers on providing disincentives for less healthy workers to take a job at Wal-Mart in two ways: by incorporating physical activity into all job functions (the benefits memo suggests, for example, that cashiers should gather carts) and by providing health benefits that expose workers to much more cost-sharing for medical expenses than their wages suggest they can reasonably afford.

Source: TomPaine.com

If buying local can be a rewarding experience for consumers, it is an essential lifeline for most locally-owned businesses, especially in the post-Katrina economy. Making it easier for the two to find one another is the aim of a new campaign from Stay Local, the economic development program of the local advocacy group the Urban Conservancy.

Source: Gambit Weekly

Supporters say that buying local produce, meat or dairy products keeps money circulating in the area and Cornell Cooperative Extension estimates that an additional $16 million would flow into the regional economy if everyone in Tompkins County devoted 10 percent of their food purchases to local products. Reducing the miles traveled between farm and plate can also cut down on the consumption of petroleum products and deliver better tasting, more nutritious food.

Source: Ithaca Journal

Welcome to the world of “objective” economists, economic developers, and business leaders who believe that the future of their community depends on Wal-Mart and Borders. Despite the nearly one hundred “Local First” campaigns around the country, fervent opposition is also growing. So, to prepare you and thousands of other independent businesses for the battles ahead, let me share a half dozen of the most common arguments circulating and how best to respond to them.

Source: Bookselling This Week

Overall, the staff’s analysis said, construction of the Lowe’s “will begin to resurrect a neglected site and bring a higher degree of commercial and residential activity in an area of New Orleans East that has suffered from disinvestment.”

Source: Times-Picayune

BB&T, one of the largest banks in Washington area, announced Wednesday it will no longer lend to development commercial projects that involved the seizure of private property under eminent domain rules.

“It’s a philosophical decision consistent with our values,” said Ken Chalk, BB&T’s senior executive vice president and chief credit officer. “We think this is just not good public policy.”

Source: BB&T Press Release

In New Orleans: Ethnic Cleansing, GOP-Style.
In a recent email to Louisiana officials, FEMA curtly turned down the state’s request for funding to notify displaced residents that they could cast absentee ballots in the city’s crucial February mayoral election.

Source: Mother Jones

“According to the government’s initial plan, the Philadelphia wireless network will offer inexpensive high-speed, or “broadband,” access through wireless technology that weaves base stations powered by public sources like street lamps into a wireless “mesh” network. The service, cooperatively offered through government and private resources, will be open to households, public institutions, businesses and mobile devices within range of the local signal.”

Source: The New Standard

“The large billboards dotting parts of Louisville are as striking for their color scheme—black and white—as they are for their message. “Keep Louisville Weird” the billboards scream. It’s part of a public-relations campaign in Louisville and cities from Boulder, Colo., to Raleigh, N.C., aimed at drawing customers to unique, locally owned stores. The campaigns and small-business alliances are using the effort to stay in competition with large retail chains such as Wal-Mart, Target and the recently merged Kmart-Sears.”

Source: Washington Times

“You’ve heard of the ‘broken windows theory.’ It states that minor examples of blight – such as ugly graffiti or broken windows, can, if uncorrected, lead an entire neighborhood into crime and decline. Happily, the reverse of that theory may also hold true. A single building, store or housing development can help elevate and enliven an area. The right new project can bring a new look, new economic juice, and new faces to neighborhoods that desperately need it.”

(Thanks, Jennifer)

Source: Planetizen

“Ragas said that there is no “housing bubble” in the New Orleans market because prices in the area are still lower than averages for Southern cities and the United States. A recent survey by news Web site MSNBC.com ranked New Orleans and Baton Rouge among the top 10 most underpriced markets in the country.”

Source: Biz New Orleans

“There is a strong parallel between this genetic diversity and retail diversity on our high streets. Where loss of genetic diversity threatens the survival of species and leaves ecosystems vulnerable to collapse, clone shops and towns imperil local livelihoods, communities and culture by eroding choice and decreasing the resilience of high streets to economic downturns.”

(Thanks, Mysterious Plutocrat)

Source: New Statesman

“Patronizing independent businesses enriches my life in ways large and small. Right around the corner is Caffe Tempo, a congenial coffee shop where last week my wife Julie and I ordered $11.06 worth of breakfast, tea, and greeting cards before realizing neither of us had brought a wallet. “Don’t worry,” said the clerk, “just bring it the next time.”

“That doesn’t happen at a Starbucks, Denny’s, or any other chain more beholden to distant stockholders than to its neighbors and customers. So if you don’t want to see your town totaled by Wal-Marts, Burger King, and the like, stand up for your local merchants. Visit their stores. Buy something. The future of your community and our country depends on it.”

(Thanks, Mary Gail)

Source: Michigan Land Use Institute

“It’s a model that works because it’s so simple. It’s thousands of years old. Take consumer and producer and put them together and amazing things happen,” says Richard McCarthy

Source: City Business

Claiming publicly funded tourism agencies in New Orleans all but ignore their interests, a local group of small hotel and bed-and-breakfast owners has taken self-promotion into its own hands.

Source: City Business