Creative Ways to Do Major Economic Development Despite Salisbury’s Overwhelming Barriers: Cooperatives

Steve Mensing, Editor

♦ When Salisbury, N.C. stares into the mirror and honestly self-assesses their abilities to do economic development they will note their extremely limited options in attracting and maintaining traditional businesses, retail, and entrapaneurs. Salisbury’s key statistics, that business scouts examine, are such items as poverty (Salisbury’s poverty is 28.4%), crime (More recent FBI crime statistics show us to have done quite poorly in the areas of violent crime and property crime) This year demonstrates an upsurge in murders and violent crime throughout the city. Besides possessing an understaffed police department, Salisbury reveals its neighborhoods are dangerous anytime of the day. Schools within the city proper are low-rated due to their composite scores on the State Educations all important READY Report.

Challenges concerning little spendable income make prospective retailers wince and look elsewhere. Other key obstacles are Salisbury’s exceptionally high downtown taxes, the city’s ordinances and codes (often arbitrarily applied) which serve as a barrier to anyone desiring to set up shop in the 330th rated city/town in North Carolina according to AreaVibes.com. The city government’s visible instability due the city manager disappearence via “mutual termination”, the “golden parachutes”, the non-transparency in Salisbury’s municipal government and city’s financial status due to the Fibrant debacle are not a turn-on to those investigating the possibility of doing business here.

http://rowanfreepress.com/salisbury-nc-statistics/

Okay an honest assessment will warn us that economic development in Salisbury will need to be done via ultra creative means. Dozens of possibilities immediately leap off the screen, but among the foremost are “cooperatives” or sometimes known as “employee owned businesses”. Any kind of business: retail or otherwise can begin as a cooperative or under employee ownership. Many such businesses exist across the United States and have a high success rate. Ownership in a business serves as a major motivation for an employee who is part of the game.

Cooperative Startups

Groups of people from any economic status either poor or working class (wealthy too) can band together to fire up community “cooperative” businesses. In cooperative ventures all share in the work and the profits. Basically your stakeholders are the workers. These grassroots cooperatives can grow, eventually prosper, and add to a city’s tax base. The more cooperatives, the more jobs. Inch by inch the city’s poverty statistics can be lowered, more jobs become available, and the city may once again attract traditional business and retail.

Currently my wandering spirit landed me in Madison, Wisconsin a major stronghold of the cooperative movement in the United States. Here when they say “shop local” they have actual worthwhile cooperative supermarkets and fooderies where you can find food in quantity, quality, and price equal to and frequently superior to corporate supermarkets. Located in Madison are two major cooperatives “Hi-Vee” and “P.D.Q.” and a small co-op called “Willy Street Co-op”. The cooperative model for supermarkets may be worth checking out especially in the light that Food Lion appears on uneven ground. In Salisbury Walmart, Aldi, and Harris Teeter (Where we bought most of our groceries) could well be the last men standing. Wouldn’t be surprised if Walmart’s “Neighborhood Market Grocery Stores” showed up in Salisbury before long.