This is a selection from The Local Economy Revolution: What's Changed and How You Can Help. Like what you read? Check out the book at https://localeconomyrevolutionbook.wordpress.com/book/ --- Um, Della. You keep beating up on consultants. You've been a consultant for close to 20 years. You still make money consulting. You like to eat, don't you? Hm. …
Continue reading Random Excerpt: What a consultant is good for
You're gonna have to forgive me a little crowing over this one. Little Piqua was one of the first towns on my radar when I first moved back to Ohio after more than 10 years elsewhere, thanks to its mature and impressive Main Street Program. Between that and the rehabilitation of the Fort Piqua Plaza, …
Continue reading From the Really Good Ideas File: the Awesomeness that is Piqua, Ohio
I'm always glad when Good Ideas come out of Cincinnati, in part because it's the town that I have called home for the last 15 years and in part because there's pretty good stuff going on. Historically, Cincinnati has relied on its over-supply of Fortune 100 businesses, at least as compared to its population size, …
You always have to be a little careful about how much you read into a mainline press story about another city, but I have to say, this one worries me. According to this story from the Denver Post, that city has decided to place an emphasis on recruiting retailers to the city:"Retail activity is extremely …
Continue reading From the (maybe not so) Good Ideas File: Chasing retail because taxes
I have been following the growth of crowdfunding for a long time, and I've been particularly intrigued by the potential for crowdfunded real estate development. But so far truly broad based crowdfunding in real estate has been rare, with the most widely known examples coming from the Prodigy Network based in Bogota, Columbia. Imagine my …
Continue reading From the Good Ideas File: Crowdsourced Real Estate Deals
This Good Idea come with a personal stamp of approval. Mini Maker Faires have been popping up all over the country, and, well, they're awesome. Initially developed by Make Magazine, Mini Maker Faires are typically locally-orgainzed events that allow anyone who, well, makes stuff, to show off what they can do. What does that have to …
Continue reading From the Good Ideas File: Mini Maker Faire!
This article focuses on national policy, but in the process it gives a great insight into the challenges and the unknowns of what I referred to in the book as the 1099 Economy, after the United States tax form used to report income from freelance work. And it highlights a key problem: since at the …
Every week, I open The Local Economy Revolution to a random spot and give you a selection here from the book. Intrigued by what you read? Get the whole book here. One of the biggest, often overlooked challenges we are facing today is that our traditional debate model of public involvement isn’t working, and it’s …
Continue reading Random Excerpt: The three main barriers to meaningful public engagement
One of the major themes in the book revolves around the risks -- and our tendency to overlook the risks -- of the unintended consequences of the big ideas we come up with to try to make our communities better. As I've noted a bunch of times, including here and here, a huge number of …
Continue reading From the Good Ideas file: South Carolina’s Abandoned Building Revitalization Act
It's hard for people who work in local governments and nonprofits (or many old-line employers, for that matter) to grasp the incredible changes going on in how more and more people do their work. Don't get caught up in the gee-whiz technology mentioned in this article, but look closely at how this work is getting done …
Continue reading From the Good Ideas file: Work at WikiSpeed is not work like it used to be
The Local Economy Revolution Has Arrived 