offbeat columbus

new rjd2 video.

civic economics is an economic-analysis and strategic-planning consultancy, with offices in austin and chicago. since its founding in 2002, the firm’s performed a series of case studies in cities across the country — austin, chicago, san francisco — in an attempt to assess the economic impact of local, independent businesses versus chain retailers.

in 2004, they performed a study (available for download in full below) of andersonville, il, a north-side chicago neighborhood.

this is markedly less than an executive summary, but the results were as follows:

across the board, independent businesses exceeded their chain competitors in the “four primary components” of local economic impact: percentage of revenue spent on local labor; percentage of profit remaining in the city; the rate of procurement of local goods and services; and the percentage of contributions to local charities and fund-raisers.

for every $100 spent at a chain retailer, $43 remained in the local economy; if that same spending occurred at an independent business, that value jumped to $68.

for every square foot of space occupied by a chain retailer, the local economic impact was $105; if a local firm occupied that same space, the impact jumped to $179.

the results built upon findings first found in a 2002 in austin, replicated later in maine’s mid-coast region and toledo, oh, and most recently in 2007 in san francisco: local, independent businesses generated on average three times as much local economic activity as chain retailers, adjusted for revenue, in each case.

download the study here.