Global Trade by Tom Pope
Your community full service, sit-down restaurant thrived for the past two years, especially aided by some new city hall programs of funding. But action from the White House and decision makers in other countries could just kill that thriving effort.
The restaurant might run into new difficulties should the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) pass Congress. A foreign company or law could make the food supplies too expensive for the restaurant. New changes in safety standards could pose legal problems, and the court on Sutphin Boulevard, Queens New York, would have to listen to laws passed by an overseas business interest.
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Right now, the Obama Administration is pushing TPP, which it claims will open opportunities for American manufacturers, workers, farmers, and others for jobs and growth.
The backers claim the TPP will improve a transparency for regulations to make it easier for small businesses to deal across a region.
However, Martin Khor, director of South Centre, a global organization of developing countries, warns that local producers will have to compete with large foreign businesses.
“The TPP will give foreign companies more opportunities to sue governments, while also raise prices of medicine,” he said, according to the Global Policy Forum, an independent policy watchdog that monitors the work of the United Nations.
The thriving restaurant down the block may have benefited from a law that allows a loyal staff because management pays more than the average hourly wage. But TPP could have a foreign company want to limit the wage and should that happen, the court on Sutphin Boulevard might have to listen to that foreign complaint.
“The TPP will also open up government buying,” he said. “Foreigners would be allowed to bid on similar terms as local companies for goods, services, and projects from the federal government, state, and city governments.”
Global grain-trading and food-processing firms have made enormous profits as local farmers suffer. Right now, local dairy farmers worry that the TPP could shatter the US dairy sector, according to Truthout, an online presence that aims to engage action by showing justice issues.
If the TPP passes, farmers will be forced to provide the cheapest product without looking at safety standards or the environment.
Corporations have sued governments for losses from what was expected as profits, according to Loretto, an online education site aimed to build citizenship.
Over 500 lawsuits against 95 governments have occurred that hurt consumers, and half of the lawsuits were initiated by oil, gas, and mining corporations.
Other businesses that strive to develop a community could be smothered. How would the change affect a small factory or even a barber shop when certain supplies come from another country.
Former United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk warned that complicated deals like the TPP are meant to confuse people. Kirk stated that the text has been limited to people because the interests don’t want people “walking away from the table.” Even though the agreement would be global, US citizens, journalists, and members of Congress are denied access to viewing the full bill.
Kirk is saying, if people knew the contents of the TPP, it would never be passed.
What does that do to the popularity of that great thriving restaurant in the neighborhood?
If you found this article helpful, contact Tom Pope at TomP47@aol.com
Neighborhood Development Project by Glenn Greenidge
When The New Economy Project, lashed out against Wells Fargo, the group demonstrated its mission to support community justice and eliminate discriminatory practices. The group is the former organization called The Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project (NEDAP).
The issue aimed to pressure the regulator of national banks to blame Wells Fargo with a failing grade at applying the Community Reinvestment Act.
“Wells Fargo has systematically harmed communities, wrecking people’s lives and whole neighborhoods in the process,” said Sarah Ludwig, co-director of The New Economy Project, based in New York City.
Part of The New Economy Project’s mission focuses on banks and the legal justice systems that avoid funding disadvantaged neighborhoods. The goal of the project also seeks to provide technical assistance for training and education of rights, obstacles, and opportunities for community advancement and development.
One main focus is directed towards women, youth, and immigrant services with an eye on legal rights of the residents.
To succeed, community people should combine resources with community organizations to bridge the gaps in finance. One example can be seen with the program of the mapping services. The group provides geographical information systems (GIS) that map support and research services.
Those services can be used to provide mapping trends of financial services being provided. Mapping looks at census and new economies to show the strengths and weakness of the neighborhood. In some cases, those services don’t exist in the neighborhood.
Other additional services may interest your organization with technical assistance, marketing research, and support for neighborhood development.
The New Economy Project exists as a resource that every community development company can use to leverage a community’s resources. Some specific programs help community education, providing information on the high cost of credit in low income neighborhoods. Another could be showing immigrant rights in banking, or how to avoid predatory mortgage lending.
If your organization supports the economic development of your neighborhood, The New Economy Project can be a useful resource for educating, promoting, and advocating change in your community's financial status.
If you found this helpful, please contact Glenn at Glenn@FamersBlvd.Org.
PROMPT:
Leave a comment about how a community organization in your area bucked the system to help residents.
Describe which action they took, and how things changed in your neighborhood.
Contact Tom Pope or Glenn Greenidge at TomP47@aol.com or at Glenn@FamersBlvd.Org
Fighting Windmills by Tom Pope
Why would a windmill and salt mine with a seemingly throwback scene of a middle-age’s market mean anything to people today?
A trading post in the 2007 television series Jericho could show how community development activists might build their neighborhoods. Could the mixed use concept of finding businesses and dealing with financial problems happen in a fiction scenario?
Jericho’s episode 13, called “Black Jack,” showed key characters from two towns finding ways to put aside differences so that both communities could cope with survival.
The series shows characters who struggle with keeping their small towns alive despite the horrors of society breaking apart. The towns across America faced isolation after a nuclear attack where communication disappeared. The town of Jericho faced uncertainty in knowing what happened with the state government along with that of the country.
Resources for fuel, food, and shelter had to be reallocated. The cast of characters showed the various needs a community requires.
Those characters included a young owner of a supermarket, a salt mine operator, a doctor, and several administrators. The show attempted to reveal how decisions would become increasingly difficult during such a calamity
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In the “Black Jack” episode, the characters Heather, Jake, Johnson, and Dale sought parts for a generator the town desperately needed. They brought windmill parts to exchange for a hoped-for generator. However, they discovered that the people who could barter the generator parts also used torture shackles for their enemies.
Rather than deal with the violent people, the Jericho group tried to meet a leader of the market place to find a solution. Yet that failed as the market place shocked the group with a band of thugs who seized them and threatened one of their group with execution.
With a surprise move of cooperation, a group from Jericho’s neighboring town of New Bern helped to rescue the group’s member. That action unfolded despite past arguments between the two towns.
Blending the skills from both towns, a new deal formed. Heather from Jericho went to New Bern to build needed windmills for both towns. Jericho agreed to give salt from the salt mine to New Bern. In the process, New Bern helped provide a generator. A solution came from unsuspecting new allies.
Community development activists can find a model from windmills and salt to fit their neighborhood. When a power obstacle faces you, you don’t have to take the path of aggression that could bring a police force to intervene.
Rather, find another, even unlikely group, that offers skills. They might have resources different from those you supply. Then the extra strength from your combined effort poses a bigger balance against a financial threat.
PROMPT:
Leave a comment about a book or movie that showed you a model to deal with finance and improvement in a community.
Which character stood out to show an alternative? Can a modern-day George Bailey from, “It’s a Wonderful Life?” defeat a new version of a financial Mr. Potter?
Contact Tom Pope or Glenn Greenidge at TomP47@aol.com or at Glenn@FamersBlvd.Org
Mixed Use Project by Tom Pope & Glenn Greenidge
Imagine a set of buildings where neighbors stop by a bagel shop after lying on a massage table in another office.
Both businesses lie in the same complex. Maybe people might even stop by a custom jewelry gift shop before they head home.
Such could be the development in a community when finances fit the goals of a comprehensive plan.
For example, those types of buildings can be found in Eden Prairie’s Windsor Plaza, a part of Minnesota near Bloomington.
Retailers on the ground-floor helped attract office tenants in the four-year-old, mixed-use development.
That development now smiles on a 95 percent capacity, according to John McCarthy, a senior vice president with Bloomington-based Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq.
What is a mixed-use development? Mixed-use development typically appears as a building or complex for a mixture of land uses, according to the Community Development website at:
http://www.useful-community-development.org/mixed-use-development.html
Often such an operation presents commercial offices with areas of entertainment, or services of parental aides such as child care and other community needs.
Mixed-use zoning could either happen on a big arena, or show up in one small site. Think of apartments on the second and third level where storefronts or restaurants occupy the lower levels.
The Community Development site links the concept of mixed-use with the concept of new urbanism, a movement aimed to restore the old idea of a neighborhood.
The concept strives to develop life-work units where families live above the store. That model dominated a historical pattern in the past although it tended to disappear during industrialization.
You can find these office-retail developments more in center cities, but the setups are sprouting in suburbs, especially since developers and tenants find the concept attractive, according to McCarthy.
Most often, mixed use developments occur with “in-fill” areas or places where less developable land stands open, according to Herb Tousley, director of the real estate program at the University of St. Thomas. The goal allows communities to obtain more density, according to Tousley.
Community people should think about a comprehensive plan. Leasing agents want to find a convenience for groups of employees. Think about offering shops where the workers don’t have to drive to lunch or where they can pick up groceries. Compare office space located in mixed-use developments with other stand-alone spaces. Many agents don’t track mixed-use office space. But some conversations seem to confirm the mixed-use concept helps communities more than usual stand-alone office space. Advantages occur in bringing in tenants and in drawing square-foot rental fees.
Yet certain conditions make for success. Every store has to maintain financial stability on its own, according to Pat Mascia, a former senior vice president of Indianapolis-based Duke Realty.
Don’t expect a surging retail store to make up for a slow filling of empty office space. Plan on some type of covered parking so employees can avoid severe weather conditions or expensive downtown garage charges that reach $150 per month.
One national study, by the Commercial Real Estate Development Association’s Research Foundation (NAIOP), compared eight metro areas including the Twin Cities. The Colliers Turley Martin Tucker study indicated that a mixed-use development, “can command a statistically significant, positive premium in select markets.”
The NAIOP operates as a trade association for developers, owners, and investors of commercial real estate.
However, mixed-use is still “an emerging market niche,” according to the study. But the study states a strong potential exists as we evolve from a “sprawl-oriented approach" to "a smarter development style.”
If you found this helpful, please contact Tom at TomP47@aol.com or Glenn at Glenn@FamersBlvd.Org.
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