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Waste to Wealth Internships (DC Office) The Institute for Local Self-Reliance seeks qualified college and university students or graduates for summer and academic year internships to work on its Waste to Wealth Program. Course credit may be available with approval from an academic department. We are seeking interns for three projects: Recycling Means Business: ILSR is … Read More
Twin Cities Pioneer Press, June 20, 2014 John Socha once yearned to work from his Spring Grove home, but was crippled by out-of-date technology – notably his excruciatingly pokey rural Minnesota dial-up Internet access. So Socha, a creator of digital-audio content for radio, had to journey nine miles to a Caledonia office for an Internet connection fast enough … Read More
San Francisco Bay Guardian, June 17, 2014 San Franciscans have always been wary of chain stores, more so than residents of any other major US city, none of which have taken on the ever-expanding national corporations and their homogenizing impact on local communities as strongly as San Francisco. In the decade since San Francisco first adopted … Read More
Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2014 It’s the kind of story people hear all the time. Two years ago, Rick Stender found out that a local business he liked—a custom-bike maker—was in big trouble. The shop needed money to import extra bike parts for the holiday rush. And banks wouldn’t extend any credit to such a … Read More
East Bay Express, June 11, 2014 The national campaign to create sustainable local economies is thriving as cities increasingly realize that attracting corporate chain stores is not the answer. For the past half-century, cities throughout the nation, and especially in California, have competed fiercely with each other to attract big-box retailers and chain stores. Politicians, mindful … Read More
Bookselling This Week, May 14, 2014 On May 1, 1974, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) launched as a Washington, D.C., community group working to foster what we now know as “sustainability.” In the 40 years since the organization’s founding by Gil Friend, David Morris, and Neil Seldman, ILSR has grown into a national research and … Read More
A recent study has documented, for the first time, how the big-box retailing revolution led by Walmart and other big chains has dramatically increased the amount of energy we’re using to schlep consumer goods across the country and into our homes. … Read More
ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell is interviewed on the Local Bites Podcast. She lays out the evidence against the growing consolidation of economic power in the hands of a few global corporations and exposes the policy decisions that have led us down this path. She highlights several promising initiatives from the growing localization movement, and outlines the key components of a ‘localist policy agenda’. … Read More
A new study finds Amazon’s sales drop in states where it is required to collect sales taxes, revealing what Jeff Bezos has undoubtedly known for years: the company’s success, its track record of shuttering local businesses, is as much a product of government favoritism as it is of its own ingenuity. … Read More
