Are you working to stop or prevent sprawling big-box development in your community? Are you looking for ways to strengthen local policies to protect your community and ensure that citizens control its future? Are you trying to expand locally owned businesses?
Big Box Tool Kit has the resources you'll need to both beat the big box and to chart a new course for economic development in your community.
This site has six main sections and we strongly encourage you to visit them in order. Begin with Where to Start, which provides both a guide to stopping big-box projects and an orientation to the resources on this site. Don't forget to join our network so that we can communicate with you about new resources and your needs.
Big Box Took Kit is a project of the nonprofit Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Read more About Us.
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Featured Articles
Wal-Mart Wants to Colonize New York City: Our Response
Feb. 4, 2011 | Hometown Advantage
Hundreds turned for a recent New York City Council hearing on the impact of Wal-Mart, which wants to open dozens of outlets across all five boroughs. ILSR's New Rules Project was invited by the Council to testify. Here's what we said.
Will the Real Voice of Small Business Please Stand Up?
Nov. 3, 2010 | Hometown Advantage
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce insists that its political activities serve the interests of American business in the broadest sense. But a growing number of small independent businesses are challenging that notion, arguing that the Chamber's real allegiance is to the giant corporations that fund it.
Why Does Target Have a Subsidiary in Bermuda?
July 28, 2010 | Hometown Advantage
Offshore tax havens enable big corporations to dodge an estimated $37 billion a year in taxes. A new coalition of small businesses is calling on Congress to level the playing field.
Putting Wal-Mart's Green Moves in Context
March 5, 2010 | Grist magazine
What journalists and even environmentalists so often fail to do in reporting on Wal-Mart's sustainability announcements is to provide some context.
Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses
". . . illuminates a stunning collection of business outrages, government favoritism, environmental damages, hidden economic and societal costs, debunked myths and a rising swell of consumer activism against big-box blight. . . Big-Box Swindle could have been a downer to read, but Mitchell devotes the final quarter of her powerful book to inspiring lessons from places that are turning the tide." -John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer. More details here.
