Business Alliance Charts Path Less Traveled By Bill Brakken It's a common refrain when people hear about my connection with the new Northland Sustainable Business Alliance (NSBA): "Isn't that the anti-Chamber group?" Indeed, it's probably fair to say that our exciting new business organization initially took root in the soil of discontent with the Duluth Chamber of Commerce. It turns out I wasn't alone when I wrote an article for the News-Tribune last April critical of the Chamber's lack of support for my personal effort to create a new small business in Duluth. In less than a year, the mailing list for NSBA blossomed to more than 150. But while NSBA initially benefited from a bit of "anti-Chamber" media exposure, our roots now need to expand. NSBA must begin the more challenging task of defining a positive vision for our region's communities. Unfortunately, it's often difficult to talk about what needs to be changed without referring to what is. For example, if you believe, as I do, that supporting locally owned businesses is an important element to maintaining community vitality and character, how do you not criticize our local Chamber of Commerce (which claims to represent local businesses) for installing as its Board Chair a person who works for a multinational corporation with a core business strategy of squeezing out local merchants? It's a fact that over the past 15 years, the U.S. retail economy has undergone a massive shift from primarily locally owned to primarily absentee-owned businesses. Big box superstores have squeezed out independent bookstores and pharmacies, neighborhood grocery markets and hardware stores. What does this mean for Duluth and our surrounding region? To me, succumbing to a national trend that some may view as inevitable would once again be taking the easy path toward the kind of economy that has bedeviled our region for much of the past century-a "Colonial" economy in which natural, financial, and human capital is sucked up by a wealthy few and/or shipped away to distant markets. In the process, local control is surrendered to those with little stake in the long-term vitality of the entire community. A recent example is Office Depot pulling up stakes just seven months after coming to town. Our mayor blamed this debacle on circumstances beyond Duluth's control. Baloney! We surrendered control (and $450,000 in taxpayer financing) the moment we decided to court a big box retailer with no roots in our community. Think what that same money could have accomplished in small grants or low-interest loans to help our locally owned merchants. Of course, it's always easier to criticize in hindsight. Part of the problem is that our community leaders need other ideas to consider beyond those employed time and again throughout the United States. Those strategies might be tried, but that doesn't necessarily make them true. Some, in fact, are simply worn out. The result too often has been the one described by Duluth native, Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation: "More and more, every place in America looks like every place else, and that means every place looks like no place." Here in the western Lake Superior region, we don't need to follow the path of least resistance. We can choose instead to emulate the successful strategies a few special communities have used to enhance their economic vitality while preserving their unique character. We have an incredible array of assets in our region-economic, environmental, and social. Let's not fritter them away trying to be like every place else. Let's use them to make our region a shining example to which other communities can aspire. Bill Brakken and his wife Becky are the owners of the A.G. Thomson House Bed and Breakfast, 2617 East 3rd Street. NSBA meets the second Tuesday of each month (724-3464). These articles are retained on the web for historical interest and do not necessarily reflect the views or goals of DPPA today.

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