The local economy solution How innovative, self-financing "pollinator" enterprises can grow jobs and prosperity

Shuman is an economist, an attorney, and the author of three other books on local economies. This most recent book is a practical overview of how to generate economic development without selling one's soul to big government and philanthropies. Shuman developed the book from interviews he conducted in 2014 with entrepreneurs who headed up 36 "pollinators," defined as "self-financing enterprise[s] committed to boosting local business." A pollinator allows a community to take on key economic development functions: identifying opportunities for local businesses (the planning), fostering buy efforts (the purchasing), training locals for business opportunities (the people), showing how local businesses can work together (the partnerships), and finding how local capital can be mobilized to expand local businesses more cost-effectively than taxpayer-funded programs can (the purse). Shuman urges readers and their friends to form local investment clubs; such clubs essentially make members part of the solution because they help those interested in joining the movement move away from "legalized bribery," such as offering companies tax breaks to abandon their hometowns. Taken as a whole, this book presents an engaging story of the emerging localization movement by describing real people and enterprises doing real development. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through professionals and practitioners. --Charles Wankel, St. John's University, New York

An argument against bringing large corporations to local communities through tax incentives and grants, an approach the author claims is destructive to employment and investment. Shuman (Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Move Your Money From Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity, 2012, etc.), a longtime advocate for promoting local business and a former director of the Business Alliance For Local Living Economies, asserts that "economic development today is completely broken." Citing the 750-fold increase in subsidies for the movie industry over the past decade, the author debunks the myths circulated to support attracting business in this way, and he argues that such deals do not create jobs but rather take more money out of communities than they bring in. He insists that "those who win the investment lose" and that "it's high time for economic developers to get back to business." Shuman views local startup businesses as the answer, especially the kind he calls "pollinators." These measure success more broadly than by direct returns and include significant contributions to their communities and other local businesses. This approach is intended to strengthen a core feature of the current economy. "All companies that matter," he writes, "are not globally mobile." More than half are not spreading across the world but are locally owned and unlikely to move. U.S. capital markets do not often invest in local businesses. Self-financing local "pollinators" address this "huge capital market failure." Shuman believes that planners should focus on the potentials within their areas through the accumulation of the detailed knowledge necessary, and he provides ways to measure opportunities lost and potential foregone. He also discusses profiles from several cities and counties to exemplify ways in which local businesses are being promoted. These include Sustainable Connections in Bellingham, Washington, and Local First Arizona, among others. A practical overview of the untapped potentials of a substantial part of the economy. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.