The FTC has chosen to "abandon communities that depend on fair competition to maintain access to essential goods and services ...

One way to build local power is to catalyze change directly in your community. Another, equally important method is to catalyze the catalysts. To really make change and build sustainable local ...

In late 2024, Rachel Hernandez ran a successful campaign to become mayor of Riverbank, California. A small town at the top of the state’s central valley, Riverbank may not fit into what you imagine as ...

Most U.S. states could do far more to provide their residents with affordable, reliable, clean energy and to capture its economic windfall. In the 2025 Community Power Scorecard from the Institute for ...

The inspiration for this season of Building Local Power is ILSR’s Power Play report, written by ILSR senior editor and researcher Susan Holmberg. Sue joins us today for a wide-ranging and candid ...

It’s no secret that cities with multiple locations of the same chain often have “a good one” and “a bad one.” Characteristics of “The Bad Target” include longer lines, dirtier facilities, fewer ...

AI technology and large language models are growing in popularity. Also growing is the technology’s detrimental effect on the environment. Each query into ChatGPT, to use one example, requires ...

In March 2020, Amazon warehouse worker Chris Smalls led a walkout protesting a lack of COVID-19 safety measures at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island. He was fired two hours later. In the following ...

For decades — from the 1930s until the 1980s — the U.S. grocery industry was remarkably competitive, with independent grocers thriving alongside large chains like Kroger and Safeway. Independent ...

The first bookstore Danny Caine fell in love with was a suburban Cleveland outpost of a mega-chain. Since then, he has not only fallen in love with independent bookstores and other local businesses ...

The destruction of Dorr Street in Toledo, Ohio isn’t just a story of physical destruction; it’s about the dismantling of crucial social infrastructure that once allowed residents to communicate, ...

Toledo’s Dorr Street bears the deep scars of federal policies that stripped away Black economic power and prosperity. Once a thriving center of Black business, Dorr Street was decimated by ...