Michael Shuman has been a consistent voice in favor of local business, and a critic of economic development that sacrifices local small business in favor of attracting outsider companies. In this interview, the author of The Local Economy Solution, The SmallMart Revolution, and several other books on how local economies can thrive, discusses…

 

• The failure of traditional economic development programs, which not only spend enormous (and unjustifiable) sums to create very few jobs, but also undermine the actual job-creating local entrepreneurial ventures
• Resources and strategies for niche-based small business skill-building
• Why the elements of success vary widely from community to community