
{"id":464,"date":"2007-06-21T07:34:03","date_gmt":"2007-06-21T15:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/06\/21\/the-road-to-balle\/"},"modified":"2007-06-21T07:34:03","modified_gmt":"2007-06-21T15:34:03","slug":"the-road-to-balle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/06\/21\/the-road-to-balle\/","title":{"rendered":"The road to BALLE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Dan Coleman<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>No, the headline is not a typo. I did not spend the first weekend of June cavorting with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour in a tropical paradise. I was attending the fifth-annual conference of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, held in Berkeley, California.<\/p>\n<p>BALLE is the umbrella group for the more than 50 communities whose businesses have formed networks committed to the idea of a local living economy. The participants view their businesses and the networks that connect them to be the economic embodiment of sustainability and understand the linkage that must be found between ecology and economy. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Many BALLE networks use the slogan \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Think Local, Buy Local, Be Local.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Their goal is to unite business owners, entrepreneurs, citizens and government leaders in a shared vision. They are, as Jock Lauterer described Carrboro, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153relentlessly local.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The bread and butter of local BALLE networks is the Think Local First Campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Bellingham, Washington\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s BALLE network, called Sustainable Connections, has turned virtually every holiday into a celebration of the local: Love Locally for Valentine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day; Kiss Me, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m Local for St. Patrick\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day; and Independent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Week around the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n<p>Discount coupon books are nothing new. The BALLE versions offer discounts exclusively at local businesses. And they are works of art, each page an evocation of the local community and culture.<\/p>\n<p>The Santa Fe Alliance partners with local banks to offer a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Locals Care\u00e2\u20ac\u009d debit card. Unlike traditional reward cards which give points for purchases at national chains, Locals Care gives customers points toward local purchases. Each purchase also contributes points to a local nonprofit designated by the cardholder and to a community fund.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the expected college towns and arts-oriented communities, larger cities are turning to the Living Economy approach as well. The Latino Economic Development Center, a BALLE group in Washington DC, works with the city to provide micro-loans to an inner-city community under assault from large-scale (and upscale) redevelopment projects. Initiatives are also underway in Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Atlanta.<\/p>\n<p>A recent poll by Sustainable Connections found that 47 percent of respondents report spending more locally since the network was launched a few years ago. Fifth-eight percent said they are now more deliberate about choosing local, independently owned businesses.<\/p>\n<p>But BALLE is not just about promoting more local business. It is about doing so in a way that meets environmental and social responsibility goals.<\/p>\n<p>Van Jones of Oakland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ella Baker Center cautioned conference attendees to avoid a future that he characterized as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153eco-apartheid,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d one in which the affluent enjoy hybrids, organic food and solar power while the poor can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pay their utility bills and eat over-processed junk food. One of the Center\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s projects is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153green collar\u00e2\u20ac\u009d program that takes youth from low-income neighborhoods and trains them in a variety of green vocations \u00e2\u20ac\u201d photovoltaic installation, weatherization, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Oakland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Grocery has partnered with restaurants and farmers to make local, organic produce accessible to poor families. The grocery is qualified to receive food stamps and sends a truck loaded with affordable produce through low-income neighborhoods bringing healthful food to those who would otherwise be priced out of the farm-to-table movement.<\/p>\n<p>Local, organic food is also promoted through creative arts and agriculture collaborations: beautiful, original posters that convey the theme \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if you love to look at farmland\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to eat the view or lose it\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; and beautiful works of sculpture made entirely from local produce.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the BALLE networks are at the forefront of initiatives in green building and energy.<\/p>\n<p>Sustainable Connections launched a Green Power Challenge to become an EPA-designated Green Power Community. Their goal was to move from 1 percent renewable energy to 6 percent. Amazingly, in less than a year, they reached the 11 percent mark, best in the nation for a city the size of Bellingham.<\/p>\n<p>A particular interest of my own was in how local government can support such efforts.<\/p>\n<p>A standout program is that of Littleton, Colorado (pop. 40,000). In 1987, Littleton pioneered an approach called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153economic gardening,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which they consider \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an entrepreneurial alternative to the traditional economic development practice of recruiting industries.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Littleton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s economic development office provides local businesses with high-end, corporate-level services such as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153market research, competitor intelligence, industry trends, marketing lists, strategy development, web optimization and customized research.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>A Living Economy ensures that economic power resides locally, sustaining healthy community life and natural life as well as long-term economic viability. A local BALLE network would be a natural outgrowth of the values that have guided Carrboro in recent years and a big step toward meeting our economic and sustainability goals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Dan Coleman No, the headline is not a typo. I did not spend the first weekend of June cavorting with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour in a tropical paradise. I was attending the fifth-annual conference of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, held in Berkeley, California. BALLE is the umbrella group&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}