It’s like a barn-raising for the 21st century

March 5, 2015 5:24 PM

These Neighbors Got Together to Buy Vacant Buildings. Now They’re Renting to Bakers and Brewers “I think when you work in social justice and economic justice, it’s not your first thought that you want to benefit the small business community, but actually the small business community is so important,” says Watson. “Any structure we can put in place that helps them be stronger and more resilient is good for all of us.”
posted by Michele in California (7 comments total)

This is a great idea for community management, and reading about these examples gave me a pleasant dose of hope. That's pretty rare these days, so thanks.
posted by GrammarMoses at 5:57 PM on March 5, 2015 [5 favorites]

Once upon a time, this was a role that banks played. But there apparently wasn't enough profit in this business model, and three decades of bank consolidation means that there really isn't any such thing as a "hometown bank" any more.
posted by Slothrup at 7:57 PM on March 5, 2015 [4 favorites]

Yeah, this is a great story - I follow Yes Magazine on Facebook and consistently they post great stuff like this. Seems like a viable option and a way to slow/control gentrification.
posted by Miko at 7:58 PM on March 5, 2015

Real estate speculators hate them!
posted by univac at 9:14 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Funny enough, this is exactly what came up at the pub last night where we were discussing how our London neighbourhoods go from dodgy to interesting to boring bedroom communities with no life for bankers too quickly.

My friend had a hare-brained scheme that wasn't so hare-brained, for a central location, and we were talking about how to keep it from chaining up once you created the space. This is the answer.
posted by C.A.S. at 11:24 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is fantastic.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:30 PM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]

It'd be an interesting experiment in deregulation. My initial instinct is that rolling back securities laws and making it easier for people to invest retirement funds in risky private investments isn't a great idea, but this could be a nice test of that.
posted by jpe at 4:00 AM on March 6, 2015 [1 favorite]