This Small Town Refused to Settle for Wal-Mart When Its Last Local Grocery Store Closed

Despite the pandemic-induced economic slowdown, three small cities have managed to thrive due to successful economic development plans that have led to “rural rejuvenation” in an effort to attract young families to live there. The city of Taos, New Mexico has used a regional strategy to increase tourism while Durango, Colorado, chose to diversify the economy by focusing on its other resources such as high education, natural gas, and healthcare. Bozeman, Montana focused on nurturing local business instead of enticing outside businesses.

Small, rural grocery stores around the country keep their doors open by using creative, cross-sector financing, recruiting local volunteers, and thinking outside the box as many residents move closer to urban areas. One such store in Wimbledon, North Dakota re-organized as a non-profit and applied for government funds as well as opened a community cafe within the store to boost traffic and revenue.

Anita, Iowa faced many of the same challenges as other small towns when the last local grocer closed amid competition with large chains like Costco and Walmart. But when its residents realized the value of a local "mom-and-pop" food purveyor to the town's economy, they created the Anita Grocery Cooperative and a board to oversee it. The Coop marks a testament to collective action, resilience, and sustainable, locally-sourced solutions.

A dairy cooperative in Ukraine has brought jobs to farmers in the region and allowed them to work together to sell their milk on the market. An international nonprofit helped the Andriyivka Prosperity cooperative get off the ground. While villagers were skeptical of joining at first, and there are still challenges with operating the cooperative, there are 129 members that sell their milk. “The cooperative has halted the extinction of the village, allowing young people to stay in their homelands and have jobs and a livelihood,” says one of the villagers.

Food hub projects are gaining momentum in Hawaii as a means to connect farmers with customers. The projects go against the narrative that produce should be sold to big-box supermarkets, and instead focuses on "allowing farmers to concentrate on farming and creating a seamless ordering system so consumers can order food online for delivery or availability at central pickup points."

Balad Kalan’s Scheduled Castes, popularly called Dalits, collectively bid to win the rights to fertile common lands that big landlords had taken control of. Each family contributed what they could and, after protests due to the lack of transparency in the bidding process, won 53 hectares, or one-third of the common land, which was distributed among 145 families. Fifty other villages have since won collective land rights by replicating the joint bidding process. An 11-member cooperative manages the land in each village, which is distributed to families in proportion to their monetary contribution.

One small town in Colorado has spurred economic development by implementing a strategy that focused on the revitalization of creative industries. As a result, Trinidad, CO, has seen a twofold increase in lodging tax income and restaurant sales tax as well as a drastic increase in profits from commercial building permits. Local artists recognized the potential Trindad could have as a creative district and brought the plan to city officials who were eventually able to take advantage of state programs and collaborate with a nonprofit to generate creative business, revitalizing the local economy as a result.

While farmers’ markets popularity has increased in the last decade, the higher prices mitigate equal access to such provisions -- and, by extension, the health benefits. As a result, non-profits and farmers' markets across New Hampshire are collaborating with a state program, Granite State Market Watch, to enable low-income food stamp recipients to use the markets. The state matches every dollar worth of stamps, providing needed purchasing power to enjoy the fresh bounty as well as an increased customer base and revenue stream for the local farmers.

MIT's D-Lab is supporting individuals in impoverished, rural areas invent low-cost technologies to address the needs of their communities. In 2009, the D-Lab paired with SolCom, a Guatemalan community organizing enterprise, and an international development fund to bring this model to the isolated area of Nebaj, assisting locals in creating a Makerspace for microentrepreneurs. The collaboration has fostered an environment for sustainable grassroots change, in which the social and intellectual capital needed to create the needed innovations and inventions originates in the community itself.

The Virginia Fire Chiefs Association's Rural Apparatus Support Program has donated essential used firefighting equipment (including ambulances, fire engines, and tanker trucks) to 14 rural fire departments over two years, enabling departments with minimal budgets to replace broken or outdated equipment they could never afford to purchase new.