Minding Our Own Business: Local Retail Establishments and the Future of Southern Civic Community

Examining chain bookshops in the context of “third place”

“…Localisation has been suggested as a strategic approach for smaller retailers to survive globalisation (Coca-Stefaniak et al, 2010) as well as being an approach which supports civic community (Tolbert, 2005). There is recent trade evidence of this approach being adopted as an antidote to globalisation, although it often seems to be adopted by large or conglomerate businesses (Levy, 2010).…”

A public health perspective on small business development: a review of the literature

“…Using national longitudinal data measured at the state level, Tolbert (2005) found a modest but positive correlation between local retail and the number of associations and groups in which a person participated. They also found a strong positive relationship between local retail and both the number of locations used for public gathering spaces, as well as voter turnout for national elections (Tolbert 2005). Blanchard and Matthews (2006) examined how the size of businesses in a community relate to civic engagement.…”

“…The first study, which used a repeated cross-sectional design, found that higher levels of employment and wages in locally oriented retail establishments were associated with lower levels of infant mortality, when measured at the state level. This relationship appeared to become stronger over time (Tolbert 2005). The second study examined the association between the concentration of small businesses per 100,000 population and three health outcomes: the age-standardized mortality rate, obesity prevalence, and diabetes prevalence.…”

“…To the extent that a strong small business sector contributes to the local economy and strengthens community social fabric, investing in small businesses may confer benefits not just to those who own or are employed by these small businesses, but to an entire community (Tolbert, Lyson, and Irwin 1998). These benefits may extend to health, as suggested by a small number of empirical studies (Blanchard, Tolbert, and Mencken 2011;Tolbert 2005) and a social determinants of health theoretical perspective, which recognizes economic and community social conditions as fundamental to population health (Marmot and Wilkinson 2005). While theoretically, a strong small business sector could protect health by improving local socioeconomic conditions and reducing unemployment, the scholarly evidence connecting the sector to health has not been investigated and summarized.…”

Does local business ownership insulate cities from economic shocks?

“…Williamson (1993) proffers a more specific but related hypothesis -that outside owners of a business contemplating a plant closing will undervalue the firm-specific capital of the existing workforce (p. 105). Tolbert (2005) has a clear statement of this hypothesis: "Locally oriented businesses have stakes in the local labor market, the local economy, the local infrastructure, and -usually -the local product market. As the community goes, so go these entities.…”