I think it’s pretty clear that the folks at the “Ann Arbor News” are with us on the “Buy Local” campaign. On Friday, the paper ran an editorial challenging people to buy local during the holidays, and today they ran an op-ed by our friends Amanda Edmonds and Richard Murphy on the same subject. Here, first, is a clip from Friday’s “Ann Arbor News” editorial:

…May you spend your hard-earned money wisely, with the knowledge that what you buy and where you buy it really does make a difference – to you, your family, your community and the world…

And here’s the op-ed by Amanda and Murph in its entirety (because the “Ann Arbor News” doesn’t archive them online for very long) :

In the midst of worsening economic conditions in our region, we have an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons. More appropriately, maybe, we have the chance to press apple cider out of apple seconds bought at our local farmers’ market.

While the second analogy doesn’t flow as well as the one we are used to, it represents a shift in thinking that would bring quantifiable economic benefits to our communities. In Ypsilanti, particularly hard hit by municipal budget cuts and taxation challenges, supporting and recruiting locally owned businesses can have a multifold impact on our economic viability.

Recently, the “Buy Local” and “Eat Local” trends have been receiving a lot of attention – the word “locavore” was just declared Oxford’s 2007 Word of the Year. Often, attention is focused on the emotional and social benefits of buying and eating local: knowing the people you’re buying from, feeling good about supporting local farmers and businesses, getting good customer service and supporting minority and women-owned businesses.

The impacts are real and help strengthen the social fabric of a community. The benefits, however, of buying locally have economic impacts beyond the immediate business owner. Studies from around the country show that buying from local, independent retailers creates up to twice as many jobs, recirculates three times as many dollars in the local economy, and results in twice as much local charitable giving than buying from large chain or Internet retailers does.

Locally owned businesses direct all of their wages to people in the community, support other businesses – from graphic designers to accountants – more likely to be from the area. For every dollar spent at a local business, the studies have found, 20 to 40 cents more stays in the local economy when compared to a chain store. That equals significant economic impact.

Holiday spending is a great opportunity to begin the shift. A Maritz Poll shows that American households will spend an average of $637 on holiday gifts this year – at this rate, Washtenaw County will do $89 million in holiday shopping. By moving some of the spending that we would do at chain retailers to local retailers, we can capture some of the benefits locally. If Washtenaw holiday shoppers shifted only 10 percent of their holiday spending to local businesses in Ypsilanti, we could keep between $1.5 million and $2.6 million more in our economy. No small change.

To be clear, we are not promoting more consumption – just shifting 10 percent of what you already spend to local retailers with those dollars. Dec. 1-8 is Buy Local Week. Visit http://ypsi.buylocalmichigan.com/ and pledge to spend your holiday dollars locally. You’ll find a community-built directory of local businesses and creative ideas for local gifts. Visit the 4th Shadow Art Fair (www.shadowartfair.com/) on Dec. 1 to buy art, music, clothing and crafts directly from 50 local artists.

Policymakers and business groups can support this idea at a broader scale. While biomedical and “knowledge industry” tech startups are high-profile, capturing dollars from everyday purchases such as groceries or clothing is also economic development.

Using the most recent income and spending data from the state of Michigan and Bureau of Labor Statistics, residents of the city of Ypsilanti spend an estimated $10.3 million on clothing and footwear annually, and $7.9 million on housewares, furniture and appliances. Depot Town and downtown Ypsilanti have several independent retailers in those categories, but our guess is that they aren’t capturing nearly $18 million in annual revenue from city residents.

Another often-missed market opportunity is in the supply chain for local businesses. What manufacturing or service or supply needs can be met locally? Agriculture is Michigan’s second largest industry by dollar value. Michigan is a national leader in specialty produce, and consumer demand for local food is skyrocketing.

City of Ypsilanti residents spend an estimated $4 million on fruits and vegetables annually, an average of $453 per household. In 2007, the downtown Farmers Market saw $28,000 in sales. If we could move beyond our growing farmers markets and supply our local restaurants with fruits, vegetables, herbs and breads produced or processed in our community, the economic impact multiplier only increases – consider the additional jobs and shortening of the supply chain, not to mention reduced transportation expenses and carbon footprints.

We surprised ourselves when we calculated those figures. Amid all of the bad news about the local and state economies, we were very happy to discover how easy it would be to create local jobs and capture dollars within the local economy just by shifting a small portion of the spending that we’ll already do…

And, on top of all of this, I’m told that intrepid girl reporter Jordan Miller is working on a feature for the Community section of the “Ann Arbor News” featuring a number of the locally-owned and operated businesses we feature in the upcoming brochure. All the pieces really seem to coming together. Now, hopefully, it will help our retailers.

As you may have noticed in the op-ed above, our Shop Ypsi for the Holidays site is now up and running. There are still a few things missing, but we’ve got the Buy Local Challenge that we’ve been talking about up and running, and a PDF of the brochure we’ve been working on should be up later today. If you plan to do a majority of your shopping here in Ypsi this holiday season, sign it, and let everyone know that you support our Ypsi merchants and want for them to succeed.

Thanks again to all the volunteers who got this initiative off the ground. It’s really amazing what a small group of people can do with relatively few resources when they believe is something.

I wrote something here a few months ago about the desire of several folks in the surrounding Township to create a sterile, new downtown Ypsilanti. At the time, I believe I said that it was a completely asinine idea to build a new, faux-historic town center just a few miles away from an real-live historic downtown. The ensuing conversation was joined by two folks from our Planning Department, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Vosburg. Here’s what they had to say.

First, Mr. Murphy:

(P)lanning isn’t necessarily about the near future. If they want to do something like this, better that they begin thinking about it now – really, down markets are the best time to do your planning, since you don’t have a lot of development popping up mid-process.

But on that note, I have to wonder if it’s way too late for Ypsi Twp to build a “town center”. Building a solid town center either involves rehabilitating a place that’s already got the bones for it, or else doing it in a cornfield, where there’s nothing in the way (Cherry Hill Village). I don’t really see how anything remotely walkable and human scale can be shoehorned in around the existing Whittaker Road built form. (Though, on the other hand, the typical new building is built with the expectation that it’ll be economically worthless in about 15 years, so it’s not as if a town center form can be built over time.)

I also have to wonder if they’ve got the density of rooftops to make it work. If they’re thinking “town center” in the sense of Chelsea or Dexter or Saline or Ypsi, they need to put a lot more houses a lot closer together and make it a lot more walkable and bikeable. Without residential density surrounding it, I don’t know if they can hope for anything more than the Whole Foods on Washtenaw – just a prettier strip mall.

I would agree with the sentiment, in general, that Michigan has perfectly good town centers, and, specifically, that Ypsi has a perfectly good one. Building a new one just a few miles down the road seems redundant.

But consider: Michigan’s municipal government structure forces the development chase. Ypsilanti Township *has to* try to attract more development, just like Ypsi City does, and just like every other city and township around. If Ypsi Twp is going to fight for more development, wouldn’t we rather it be something human-scaled and walkable, rather than soulless and dangerous big box strips? (Maybe with dense, pedestrian-centric areas on both sides of I-94, we’ll finally have the critical mass to make a safe crossing.)

If we have to work within the constraints of artificially and inefficiently fragmented local government, I’d at least prefer a dinky town center in every township to continuous sprawl.

Second, Mr. Vosburg:

At a Twp. meeting a few weeks back the Supervisor and Treasuer both said they didn’t want to see the “town center”, nor did they want to see an area of denser housing that was proposed elsewhere in the Twp. The Twp. Planner said he’d take it back to the drawing board.

So it seems the fake downtown is dead, or at least on it’s last legs. The fake downtown was just going to be a commercial area that wasn’t so strip-mally, parking-out-frontish looking. It would be no where near what a real downtown would be.

Either way I don’t see it being a threat to Ypsi’s two real downtowns. People still prefer real downtowns and housing trends are moving towards people living in real neighborhoods too.

So, I kind of thought that the idea was dead…. Until I read today’s “Ann Arbor News”. Here’s a clip:

Ypsilanti Township wants to have a downtown – not a collection of businesses that evolve haphazardly over the years, but an organized place of its own making and design that would include mixed development, shops, pedestrian paths and flexible zoning.

The township’s Board of Trustees adopted a new master plan recently that includes a town center district bounded on the north by I-94, on the south by the Ypsilanti District Library, on the west by the Washtenaw Business Park and on the east by Ford Lake…

The township owns about 130 acres along Whittaker Road and it plans to either sell or develop 26 acres along the busy street to become the heart of the town center district, Lawson said.

Township Supervisor Ruth Ann Jamnick said the town center district is a great concept that would create synergy around the township’s Civic Center and commercial development south of I-94. It could be an opportunity to link the city of Ypsilanti’s water front with Ford Lake via non-motorized paths and connect the town center district and downtown Ypsilanti, she said…

Nearly a quarter of Ypsilanti Township’s 32 square miles has been developed. Ford Lake and I-94 separate older neighborhoods to the north and newer subdivisions to the south, the site of the most recent growth. With about 53,000 residents, Ypsilanti Township is the largest township in Washtenaw County.

Jamnick said the township is expected to be built out in 2030 and its population will reach 73,000. So the town center district could become a hub, she said, and the entire area and any business that comes to the township would benefit.

Or, here’s another idea — why not invest in the downtown Ypsilanti we already have?