Entrepreneurship    Entrepreneurship fuels America's economic innovation and prosperity, and serves as a key means for families to move out of low-wage jobs and into the middle class.

Public Benefits and Costs    Local stores in
town centers require comparatively little
infrastructure and make more efficient use of
public services relative to big box stores and strip shopping malls.

Environmental Sustainability    Local stores help to sustain vibrant, compact, walkable town
centers-which in turn are essential to reducing sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and
water pollution.

Competition A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses is the best way to ensure innovation and low prices over the long-term.

Product Diversity    A multitude of small businesses, each selecting products based, not on a
national sales plan, but on their own interests and the needs of their local customers, guarantees

Excerpted from 10 Reasons Why Vermont's Homegrown Economy Matters and 50 Proven Ways to Revive It, written and published by:
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
1313 5th St SE
Minneapolis, MN 55414
(612) 379-3815
www.newrules.org

Preservation Trust of Vermont
104 Church St
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 658-6647
www.ptvermont.org

Illustration: Ken Avidor