A news story from Garland, Texas, got me thinking about what you can do with a roofless building. We came up with a lot of ideas for empty buildings, so I knew we could do something with roofless buildings, too. You probably have one in your downtown. Maybe a building burned, or maybe the roof…
Cities and towns, urban and rural, face a lot of the same challenges. We share the same basic issues in trying to build prosperity: support businesses, maintain infrastructure, provide basic services, improve the quality of life, build a sense of place, support the arts, promote health, and all the other to-do items you can…
Small Business Saturday and its Shop Small slogan get a lot of attention, but they aren’t the only holiday shopping project small town businesses can join for more buzz this season. Shift Your Shopping Shift Your Shopping is a theme you can adopt for any local shopping campaign. The emphasis is on shifting more of…
Want to promote your local businesses? Use a social list-making site to collect the websites and social profiles of businesses in your area. I first heard this idea from Dave Shideler, back when delicio.us was the social bookmarking tool of choice. Today’s social list-making tools offer some key advantages. Why use social list-making tools? 1….
“Everything gigantic in American [retail] is about to get smaller or die.” That’s the dramatic claim by contrarian economist James Kunstler,writing about the big retail sector in Business Insider. He says big retail is on the brink of scale implosion. Kunstler points to the same trends that are affecting small towns: online shopping, global delivery,…
If you look back through various writings, these two terms, entrepreneur and small business owner, were once considered the same thing. Yet today business schools and economic/community developers often view them differently. More often the focus is on entrepreneurial development with fewer programs having “small business” in the title. Yet one often wonders are they…
Guest post by Rick Skorupski Population migration – a net loss or a net gain for the The Plains States? Thanks to Grow Spink Inc. (an economic development non profit in north eastern South Dakota), I had the opportunity to go the Symposium on Small Towns at the University of Minnesota – Morris in June…
Most small town downtowns could use some sprucing up. Different businesses have different styles from a bunch of different decades. None of the signs or facades match. Clashing is probably a better description than coordinating. What can you do to get updated designs without spending a ton on the project? Webster City, Iowa, is one…
Since 2006, this site has been helping people like you in small towns move forward without waiting on outside experts, big budgets, or perfect plans. You don’t need any of that to get started.
If you care about your business, your downtown, or your community, you’ll find ideas here you can actually use. Take one. Try it out. Let me know how it goes for you.
Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.
We partner with campaigns and organizations that we think best benefit rural small businesses.
Copyright © 2006–2026 Becky McCray • Site by Webdancers