The article contains some interviews with downtown business owners, some perspective on the history of the Main Street organization there, and some talk of renewed activity from merchants and business owners (myself among them) in helping make the area thrive.  But there’s something missing from the picture the article paints.

One key angle that the article glosses over is the role that the rest of the community plays in creating and maintaining a thriving downtown.  While there’s certainly some role for business owners and merchants to play in creating a thriving downtown, it’s not entirely their burden to bear.  Retail districts live and die by the shopping choices of their customers, and so it seems important to recognize in any conversation about the health of a downtown that at least some of it is dictated by the “consumer culture” of the surrounding community.

It would be interesting to interview some “regular citizens” and ask them where they tend to shop, and how they perceive the downtown area.  “Given the choice between going downtown to support a business there and going to the mall or a big box store, how do you decide?”  Are they willing to pay a little more for products and services knowing those dollars stay in the community longer (thus supporting the long-term health of the area), or will they always prioritize convenience and the lowest available price?

It also seems worth looking at the environment of governmental and political support surrounding downtown.  Is it possible that city, county and state laws might be negatively impacting the ability of downtown business to thrive?  Is it possible that our approach to zoning, transportation, taxpayer-funded economic development and taxation are favoring non-local chain businesses over those who would choose to start and grow a small business in the place they live?  Is it possible that politics and personalities are at times standing in the way of a thriving central business district instead of nurturing it?

I’ve blogged about these ideas before:

The value we get from a strong and diverse local business community is hard to see when compared as a “bottom line deal” against the attractions of the “big box” stores. And I’m not suggesting that these larger retailers don’t have a place in a strong local economy. But my hope is that we’ll see the Target store closing as yet another indicator of an important trend. By putting so many of our eggs in baskets that lack the personal ties and community investments that our local businesses are built around, we set ourselves up for even greater disappointments and more noticeable disappearance of the business ethic, entrepreneurship, and innovative spirit around which Richmond has historically been built.

There’s no question that the economic health of our downtown is based on complex systems with lots of variables.  The business owners and downtown merchants are mostly already doing their part – they’re running their businesses and they’re engaged in the life of the business district and the wider community.  As a small business owner myself, I know that there’s probably not a whole lot of time left over for those hard-working folks to ALSO do the marketing, advocacy, legislative and policy work needed to help downtown compete against strip malls and big box stores.

So what role does the rest of the Richmond community have in creating a thriving main street area?  How do your choices make a difference in the health of downtown?

1) The Fireplace Shop at 1000 North F Street in Richmond is an amazing little brick complex that showcases all that can be done with wood and other heat sources. From traditional fireplaces to wood burning stoves to corn pellet stoves to crazy other conflagrant configurations, it was quite a wonderland of temperature control. With the added bits of atmosphere like lazy cats sprawled across warm surfaces, fireplace and chimney sweep nostalgia everywhere, and the hustle-bustle of workers in workshops catering to the demands of the cold season, it was a nice place just to be and observe. The store also adjoins a ceramic tile store (which sells the locally made Terra Green Ceramics line) and a brick/stone store, so you can knock out quite a bit of home improvement planning in one place. I can’t imagine there’s one of these in every community these days, and I’m certainly grateful to have one here.

2) Rohan India is a new-ish Indian Food restaurant in Oxford, Ohio that offers slightly faster access to this cuisine from Richmond than similar options in Dayton, Cincinnati or Indianapolis. The Chicken Shahi Korma with Mushrooms dish I had was probably the best Indian dish I’ve had at any location in the region, and when I got a spice level of 6 (out of 10), they really came through with that. The proximity of this dining option may be just enough to balance out the problems with the atmosphere and service – several large screen televisions blaring music videos, sports games, etc. dominated the visual landscape, and we had to play the “forced eye contact and hand waving” game at times just to get a server to pay attention. But overall, it was a fine experience, and quickly becoming a destination for Richmondites – I’ve heard at least three other distinct mentions of it this weekend alone.

3) At Home Kitchen and Gourmet at 414 North 10th (in “The Loft” where Ghyslain is) is a new location brought to us by the folks at Warm Glow Candles. Right now the shop features a variety of kitchen and bath items with Warm Glow candles sprinkled amongst them. Many of the items seemed “pricey” for Richmond, but they were generally quite unique and beautiful, and compared to a Williams-Sonoma visit in Chicago, probably a good value. The clerk who checked us out indicated that the inventory was largely just overstock from the main Warm Glow store in Centerville, and that after the first of the year, they’d be reworking it to focus much more on being a comprehensive kitchen and bath supplier. Even though I’m not one to go shopping for such things regularly, it was just great to see a locally owned place like this pop up here.

On top of that, I got to attend the Alternative Holiday Bazaar at the Clear Creek Food Cooperative, which showcased locally-made crafts and gifts on Saturday against the backdrop of live music and smiling faces – the items will be on sale all this week too.

Seeing these places, these events, these people reminds me that there are people investing anew in this community and in the surrounding ones, people making a living here and doing it in such fun and interesting ways – I’m thankful for that.

Our culture likes to take the old and repackage it as the new so it’s more exciting and engaging. I don’t have any problem with that per se – there can be something creative and innovative in finding different ways to present ideas, world-views, ways of living so that they’re more accessible to more people. We all go through different kinds of personal discovery about what we’re capable of, so why not have a “new movement” that helps support and nurture that for folks who are in that place right now?

This is what I thought I was being pitched when I got an invitation to subscribe to Ready Made magazine, which presents itself as “the only do-it-yourself (DIY)/lifestyle magazine for young people. It entertains and informs through DIY projects for fast-evolving lifestyles.” It sounded like a good support resource for learning more about self-sufficient living. I showed the invite to Anna Lisa and we both agreed that it looked like it would be useful, AND that we were excited such a publication existed at all. But when the first issue arrived, it only took me a few hours before I knew we’d be canceling the subscription. Here’s why:

Despite a couple of useful articles, the issue of Ready Made that we received (Oct/Nov 2008) seemed to be a thinly veiled handbook for excelling in the consumerist, image-obsessed culture of which the DIY movement (as I understand it) is inherently critical.

The publication itself is very glossy and polished, full of flashy ads and artwork, airbrushed models, and beautiful photos that set the bar super high for even the most dedicated do-it-yourselfer. It feels like an issue of “Teen Better Homes and Gardens,” not a rag that is all about making the most of sufficiency in resources. I can see how this style would engage a younger audience used to the glitz, and I won’t begrudge them their success if indeed the approach works, but I found it to be an unfortunate mental disconnect between the message and the presentation.

The DIY projects that they cover range from the somewhat practical (various pumpkin recipes, how to give an effective presentation, building a loft bed, storing your bicycle on the ceiling) to fun and quirky (various pet furniture, bamboo drum brushes) to the outright gratuitous (designer miniaturist models?). And in the end, many articles were just an introduction to more products you can buy…a $54 cushion to hold your produce on your kitchen counter-top, a $179 work table, a $200 gadget holder. And that’s in addition to the various free-standing ads for cars, beauty products, alcohol and bottled water.

Again, I’m not saying this kind of publication won’t be interesting or useful to someone out there…it’s just about expectations. If I’d picked up a standard home improvement magazine and seen some of this stuff I would have been thrilled about it, but when I was expecting a publication to capture the DIY ethic and got Ready Made instead, I was disappointed. I have enough troubling or misleading marketing images hitting me every day that I don’t need to pay for a subscription to a magazine that unnecessarily glamorizes the otherwise moderately useful bits of information.

Ready Made magazine might be a great introduction to the concept and practice of DIY for a high-school or college-aged person who is otherwise thoroughly engrossed in the culture of “when you need something or something breaks, you go shopping.” But for someone who’s already used to doing it themselves, I’d suggest you skip the magazine subscription, use their online project archive as needed, and move on to other, more authentic DIY resources instead.

It seems like QUITE an unfortunate juxtaposition to me to have this kind of announcement in that kind of setting.

Malls like the Richmond Square Mall certainly provide great shopping opportunities, but tend to be populated by businesses that are not locally owned and that give less back to the local economy and community over the long run than businesses that are locally owned. In most “buy local” campaigns across the country, one of the primary goals is to get shoppers to expand their notion of shopping opportunities beyond “the mall” to once again consider what small business districts and downtowns have to offer.

If Richmond residents think that buying local just means going to a shop within city limits, the potential impact of the buy-local message is diluted as their dollars leave the community for corporate headquarters elsewhere.

I asked the Chamber and Mayor’s office to reconsider the venue – feel free to do the same if you’re so inclined.

Huh?

Oh yeah, universal health care was one of the things I bought on my $3 Trillion Shopping Spree. I did it at the website 3trillion.org, which asks the question: “The occupation of Iraq will cost $3 trillion…can YOU spend that money better?” It’s an interesting exercise, and a great way to put the costs of the U.S. presence in Iraq into perspective.

Here is the full list of purchases I put in my cart:

• Universal healthcare for all Americans
  Price: $920,100,000,000.00
• Apple, Inc.
  Price: $24,000,000,000.00
• Microsoft Corp.
  Price: $262,260,000,000.00
• Google
  Price: $2,499,750,000.00
• Become President of the U.S.
  Price: $1,000,000,000.00
• No Kill Animal Shelters World Wide
  Price: $7,000,000,000.00
• Sustainable Agriculture Education, Worldwide
  Price: $200,000,000.00
• End our Dependence on Foreign Oil
  Price: $500,000,000,000.00
• 1000 Teachers’ Salaries
  Price: $39,274,000.00
• Build a National High-Speed Rail System
  Price: $300,000,000,000.00
• The Office: Season 1
  Price: $11.00

Gosh, and I still have a $1 Trillion left over, but I got a little depressed and had to stop. Spending $3 Trillion is hard! Unless you’re a certain global superpower.

What would you buy?

Pine nuts are an essential ingredient in good pesto; my recipe is available to qualified persons on request. They are also excellent in salads, lightly toasted.

A to-go lunch buffet for one person at the Golden Corral costs $6.69 (no drink), and they give you a container that I estimate could hold around 3 to 5 pounds of pine nuts, depending on what kinds of spill-prevention mechanisms you’re able to install on the fly (a small bread bag from your pocket should be fine). Pine nuts generally cost quite a bit at the grocery store or your local food cooperative, and even if you buy them in bulk or from discounted online dealers, they can cost as much as $11.99 per pound.

So, is it safe to say that the best deal on pine nuts in town, and perhaps globally, is to fill up your to-go container with them at the Golden Corral in Richmond Indiana? Beautiful.

All merchandise must fit inside the bag, all at one time to qualify for the 15% discount. No modifying of the bag is allowed. We will allow products up to twice the height of the bag to qualify for discount as long as they fit inside the bag. Multiple items must all fit inside the bag. No stacking allowed beyond the height of the bag. All merchandise must remain in its original packaging. Merchandise cannot be disassembled to fit in bag. Limited to one bag per guest (or household) per purchase per visit. (In keeping with the spirit of the sale, please do not ask the cashier to split your purchase up across multiple bags. You may make multiple shopping trips during the week, but only one bag of savings per trip.) Bag must be surrendered at time of purchase.

For those of you mapping out your trip to Menards in advance using the product dimension information you can find online: the bag is approximately 17″ high, 11.5″ wide, and 7″ deep. Under the terms of the program including the double-the-height clause, this means you can accommodate 2,737 cubic inches, or 1.58 cubic feet, of product material. My initial calculations show that the following items will not fit in the bag: the body and teachings of Jesus Christ, personal happiness, peace, justice.

What will you put in your bag?

Hey, don’t worry, I’m not running around trying to save the whales by recycling plastic bags (though there are plenty of nations around the world that take this stuff pretty seriously). But I do appreciate that some grocery stores are offering a (small) symbolic financial incentive toward positively improving consumer behavior, and for me it is a distinctive enough feature to at least partially influence my choice of vendor. And of course, you can reap the space- and environmental-saving benefits wherever you shop by bringing your own bags, regardless of the money.