Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Later this month I'm heading to the BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) national conference in Portland, OR. The conference will bring business leaders, capital lenders, economic developers, and other local economy supporters together to discuss how to build sustainable communities.
If we're going to create better communities that support local businesses, we need to think about the problems in the bigger perspective. Hopefully this conference will have a lot of success stories, best practices, and other ideas.
Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, WA (where I work as a bookseller) is an example of a local business that is contributing community value to its city. The Commons area of the bookstore has become the town's meeting place. On a typical weekend, a few thousand people will pass through the Commons to meet for coffee, hold meetings, listen to live music, study, read books etc. Yes, the bookstore depends on people purchasing books to sustain the open space. Third Place pays rent on what most would consider a public area. What if cities created the public areas, and collected rent on businesses that anchored the property?
I want to find out about businesses like Third Place, and see if we can establish patterns for other business owners to follow.
If you're going to the conference, please contact me so we can meet and talk.
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If we're going to create better communities that support local businesses, we need to think about the problems in the bigger perspective. Hopefully this conference will have a lot of success stories, best practices, and other ideas.
Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, WA (where I work as a bookseller) is an example of a local business that is contributing community value to its city. The Commons area of the bookstore has become the town's meeting place. On a typical weekend, a few thousand people will pass through the Commons to meet for coffee, hold meetings, listen to live music, study, read books etc. Yes, the bookstore depends on people purchasing books to sustain the open space. Third Place pays rent on what most would consider a public area. What if cities created the public areas, and collected rent on businesses that anchored the property?
I want to find out about businesses like Third Place, and see if we can establish patterns for other business owners to follow.
If you're going to the conference, please contact me so we can meet and talk.
