My family and I live in Eugene, Oregon and I think it is an intelligent city. Would millions and millions of dollars help our community? I think so. We could use better schools, a safer community for our friends and neighbors, less theft and vandalism, more people with good jobs and thriving businesses. If more people in Eugene realized the value to the community of keeping our money local, I think it would make a dramatic, positive impact. There is research to back this up ( Time magazine’s article). But in an article from GRIST (click on grahic) the thinking goes into how much money ends up going into ‘our cars’, thus taking that portion of our dollars away from our neighbors, our town, our state and even our country. When we use our bodies to get around we meet more people. We build relationships and grow to care more for our public assets like our streets and paths. Our food becomes our fuel with improved air quality and increased safety.
This notion helped me and my family to follow through on selling our motor vehicle in 2007. We choose to buy local when we can. We shop closer to home than further away. And we use the internet to research the larger companies so that when or if we spend our money with them, we know that our money will be used with better intention.