Speaking of retail cooperatives

A man enters the Main Street Market in Anita, Iowa, Dec. 20, 2006. Like hundreds of farm towns across the Midwest, tiny Anita, Iowa, was about to lose its grocery store, a victim of familiar adversaries: a declining population and a Wal-Mart a dozen miles away. But residents decided life in Anita wouldn't be the same without the Main Street Market, so they formed a cooperative, sold shares worth $40,000 and gave the store new life. In the past 40 years, the number of markets in Anita has dwindled from five to now the single grocery. (AP Photo/Kevin Sanders)

Smaller towns, facing the loss of locally owned grocery and other stores given declines in population as well as increased competition from chain stores, are organizing cooperatives to retain retail businesses in their towns. See "Town market turns co-op" from the Salt Lake City Deseret News.

Also see "Making Merc work: When Powell, Wyo., lost its main retail clothing store, residents rolled up their sleeves and opened their own" and the related sidebar within the story, "Western towns sell it their way," which recounts a number of other instances of small communities opening up cooperative retail ventures to maintain a retail presence. And, "Community-Owned Stores" from Yes! Magazine, and "Powell Pulls Together, When Going Gets Tough In This Tiny Wyoming City, Tough Get Going" from CBS News.

CBS photo. The Merc (antile) Dept. Store, Powell, Wyoming.

This can be a model for lower income urban communities too, however there are serious organizational and social capacity issues that make such ideas somewhat difficult to implement successfully.

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