A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

This week's newspaper column: (Read it in the Hattiesburg American.)

What’s in your neighborhood? If you’re lucky, a few locally-owned businesses.

A century ago, before automobiles came on the scene, almost all retail trade took place with small family-owned neighborhood businesses. The alternative? Travel a day or more by train, horse, or shoe leather express to make a purchase. Except for a handful of chain stores like Sears Roebuck, all business was local.

In today’s world, with the freedom of travel that cars and cheap energy affords, there seems to be no end to the proliferation of big box stores hocking everything from books to pet supplies. The Wal-Martification of America has completely changed our buying habits and our landscape.

But consider the neighborhood business; there are still a few of them around. Step through the front door and the first person you see may very well be the proprietor who happens to know you by name, or at least by face.

I’m sure you’re familiar with some of Hattiesburg’s locally-owned businesses like Moore’s Bike Shop, T-bone Records, The New Yokel Market, Coney Island, and Southbound Bagels to name a few. Visit one of these neighborhood “institutions” and you’ll be treated to richness of character, personality, and service that you will not find in big box America.

In contrast to slick building prototypes designed to get “consumers” in and out as fast as possible, the more personable environs of local establishments encourage patrons to linger long enough to have a conversation, visit with friends, and exchange ideas. Thus local artwork circulates on the wall and live or recorded music by area musicians is not uncommon. The neighborhood business is a social and cultural incubator.

Owner-operators have a stake in the community. They are your neighbors and are working hard to improve the local quality of life. They take care of their property, get involved with local issues, and unlike national retailers, profits earned by local businesses recirculate within the community.

And while national retailers construct buildings scaled for cars, neighborhood businesses respond to human proportions. The smaller footprint of a local shop fits beautifully into the fabric of real neighborhoods within walking distance of where people actually live. The horizontal chain store “landscrapers” with their oceanic parking lots are, at best inaccessible and at worst hostile, to the whole idea of livable neighborhoods.

Let’s do a little exercise.

Pick your favorite local business. Think about what the area would look like if that business did not exist. What would be there instead? A run-down shell of a building? A weed-grown lot? And how would your social life change?

Now, do the opposite: Imagine what the landscape would be like if there were many more neighborhood businesses, each with its own unique character. How would that change the physical landscape? And how would that add to the richness of your social life?

So be kind to yourself and support a neighborhood business next time you shop.

The New Social Entrepreneurs: Neighborhood Business-Owners

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Neighborhood businesses are the heart and soul of livable communities.

Larry Thomas, a second-generation independent pharmacist in Laurel, Mississippi, epitomizes the ethic that fosters cultural enrichment.

Although big box corporate pharmacies have muscled themselves into the mainstream lately with shelves stocked supermarket-style full of merchandise, owner-operated shops like Thomas Pharmacy offer to their community something that the Walgreens of the world cannot - the owner. Walk in the store and you'll more often than not find Larry Thomas himself behind the pharmacy counter dispensing prescriptions (and community wisdom) to some of the same people and their descendants that his father first served over a half century ago.

The Thomas Pharmacies of the world have an investment in their respective communities that goes far beyond economics. There is a recognizable face associated with transactions - on both sides of the pharmacy counter.

With a neighborhood business, a trip to the pharmacy is not just about getting a prescription filled. Locally owned businesses serve as community meeting places where you can actually have a real, nuanced conversation with your neighbors. It's a place where information critical to the enrichment of "community" is passed directly from people to people with a patina of humanity that cannot be found in a strip-mall world.

The new Thomas Pharmacy, scheduled open in early 2010, will offer a children's play area for waiting families and a pizza/sandwich restaurant in addition to Larry's own personally compounded hair and beauty care products.

Local owner-operators like Larry Thomas, with the mindset of "social entrepreneur," contribute far more to the community than tax dollars.