Corporate industries invading American neighborhoods, from coffee chains to bookstore chains, music chains and movie theatre chains, pose a threat to the authenticity of our unique neighborhoods. Although there is room on the map for shared territories - both the homogenous corporate enterprise and the independent ventures across the nation, our independent, community-operated businesses deserve your dime.

In An Analysis of the Potential Economic Impact of Austin Unchained (Nov. 15, 2003), Civic Economics reports: "For every $100 in consumer spending at Borders, the total local economic impact is only $13. The same amount spent with BookPeople (an independently owned bookstore) and Waterloo (an independently owned music store) yields more than three times the local economic impact."

Many independent store owners talk about knowing the community, creating a friendly and supportive atmosphere, and chatting with clients about their kids, school games, and local news.
"People say we're cozy, not corporate," said coffee shop owner Holler. "We can make our own rules and we can empower our staff to do so as well. A Starbucks employee doesn't have the pride in ownership that they do at our store."

Support the underdog and promote a future that includes the culture of small businesses! Independent bookstores are facing a grave challenge. Cody's Books in Berkeley, California was a bona fide cultural institution on Telegraph Avenue. In his recent announcement (May 10, 2006), owner Andy Ross says, "It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that Cody's will be closing our doors at the Telegraph Avenue store for the last time on July 10." In the past fifteen years, Cody's sales have declined by 66%. Cody's is certainly not the only independent bookstore to close its doors. The American Booksellers Association has seen a decline in membership from 5200 bookstores in 1991 to 1702 stores in 2005.

With chains on the rise, supporting local institutions (and many independent bookstores are truly thought of as cultural institutions) promotes a future that includes our neighborhood bookstores, movie theaters and coffee shops and denies the type of news that Andy Ross so sadly delivers.

Become active on Delocator.net or Delocator.Mapyourcity.Net and help promote independent businesses across the country!

Delocator.net was launched with the intention of becoming a web-meme, sprouting many future delocated corporate stores.