You might already know this, but I just discovered that Ypsilanti now has a functioning time bank. (For those of you not familiar with the concept, that’s a system of reciprocal service exchange in which units of time serve as currency.) It’s called hOur Exchange Ypsilanti (hEY), and there’s a 1:30 orientation session Thursday, January […]
Tag Archives: local economy
Time Banking comes to Ypsilanti with the hOur Exchange
Ann Arbor’s vegan food cart The Lunch Room to evolve into a brick-and-mortar Kerrytown restaurant
Yesterday, the owners of Ann Arbor’s favorite vegan food cart, The Lunch Room, formally announced that they would be following in the footsteps of Eat, and making the transition from seasonal outdoor vendor to year-round brick and mortar. Following is my interview with Phillis Engelbert, who, together with Joel Panozzo, owns The Lunch Room. MARK: […]
Is the Bank of Ann Arbor’s “non-local banker campaign” a hypocritical, pointelss mess of faux-localism?
For the past few months, those of us who live in and around Ann Arbor have been subjected to a relentlessly pervasive advertising campaign featuring a balding, sunken-chested, Clearasil-colored cartoon banker with an often furrowed brow, and standard issue “nerd” glasses. He started showing up on billboards a little over a month ago. At first, […]
BALLE founder Judy Wicks on the origins of Urban Outfitters, the birth of the Localist movement, and the necessity of local ownership
Recently, while in Grand Rapids, I had the occasion to meet Judy Wicks, the founder of the White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia, and the woman who, ten years ago, brought the Business Alliance for Living Local Economies (BALLE) into being. Since the meeting, we’ve been chatting by way of email… Here’s the interview. MARK: Having […]
Accelerating Community Capital (part one)… at the BALLE 2012 conference
I spent the day in Grand Rapids, participating in a workshop on new models that are evolving for local businesses to raise capital from lenders, investors and donors, at the 10th annual conference of the Business Alliance for Living Local Economies (BALLE). What follow are my rough notes, for those of you who care about […]