Building Local Power

In this episode of the Building Local Power podcast, ILSR co-director Stacy Mitchell sits down with Barry Lynn, head of the Open Markets Institute, to talk about how we fight concentrated corporate power and its impact on our liberty and democracy.… Read More

Electric vehicles are enabling energy democracy. That's the takeaway from the latest Building Local Power podcast episode, a discussion between guest host and Communications Manager Nick Stumo-Langer, Energy Democracy initiative director John Farrell, and Energy Democracy initiative researcher Karlee Weinmann. The conversation features a number of topics, including: the trajectory electric vehicles hold in renewable energy technology, generally; the ways that cities in the wake of recent hurricanes can rebuild to better weather the storms thanks to energy resiliency; and how residents of cities, large and small, can pressure their communities to enact better policies.… Read More

Gina Schaefer, the founder and owner of several local hardware stores in Washington, D.C., joins us to talk about starting and growing a neighborhood business and how her stores are faring in the age of Amazon.… Read More

This week, our Building Local Power podcast contains a conversation between guest host Nick Stumo-Langer and ILSR researchers Hannah Trostle and Christopher Mitchell to discuss the importance of connectivity in rural America and the barriers high quality local investment. The group discusses a number of topics, including how electric cooperatives are changing the dynamic on who … Read More

This week's episode of Building Local Power is a great conversation with a close ally and friend of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Niaz Dorry, coordinating director of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, sits down with hosts Christopher Mitchell and Stacy Mitchell to talk about the growing privatization of the fishing industry, how she organizes her fishing community, and the damage that large-scale fishing does to the environment and her local economy. … Read More

In this week's episode of Building Local Power we interview Debbie Dooley, President of Conservatives for Energy Freedom and co-founder of the Green Tea Coalition in the southern United States. Dooley's organizations promote "consumer choice in the energy field" to "provide competition" and stop monopolies from limiting their customer's options in renewable energy. The Green Tea Coalition features a collaboration between members of the Tea Party Movement and progressives in the Green Party and the Democratic Party in Georgia and other southern states.… Read More

In this episode of our podcast, Building Local Power, ILSR's Stacy Mitchell interviews Greg LeRoy of Good Jobs First about the tax incentive packages that governments give to big corporations, and how local governments can do economic development better.… Read More

This week in Building Local Power, we’re discussing how concentrated economic power responds to communities that are supporting their own local economies. Guest host Nick Stumo-Langer discusses how these corporations fight against local communities with a number of ILSR’s experts. He speaks with Stacy Mitchell, John Farrell, Christopher Mitchell, and Lisa Gonzalez in order to get a … Read More

This week in Building Local Power, we’re discussing independent businesses and the communities that support them. Host Christopher Mitchell and ILSR co-director and Community-Scaled Economies initiative director Stacy Mitchell interview Katrina Scotto di Carlo from Portland, Oregon. di Carlo is the co-founder of Supportland (now called Placemaker), which work to bolster independent businesses by offering new marketing and technological solutions. … Read More

In Building Local Power this week, we're delving into the potential community-based composting holds to empower historically marginalized communities in cities across the United States. … Read More

This week in Building Local Power, we are focusing on what makes and breaks markets – market power, monopoly, and antitrust. As we discuss with noted antitrust Silicon Valley lawyer Gary Reback, markets require intelligent intervention to prevent power from becoming too consolidated. Let’s be blunt – if you are happy with the Internet access choices … Read More

Welcome to episode seventeen of the Building Local Power podcast. In this episode, Andrew Gillum, Mayor of Tallahassee, Florida and founder of the advocacy group, Campaign to Defend Local Solutions joins Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Network’s initiative and Nick Stumo-Langer, ILSR’s Communications Manager for the latest episode of the Building Local Power podcast. The trio go … Read More

In this episode of the Building Local Power podcast, our guest is Justin Dahlheimer, president of a community bank in west-central Minnesota. Justin and our hosts discuss the benefits of community banking, and how banks lend differently when they have a vested stake in their community.… Read More

Welcome to episode fifteen of the Building Local Power podcast. In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews John Farrell and Karlee Weinmann, researchers for ILSR’s Energy Democracy initiative on the prospects of renewable energy given President Trump’s executive orders undermining the Clean Power Plan. The group discusses how the strong market … Read More

John Farrell, Director of ILSR’s Energy Democracy Initiative, Stacy Mitchell, Director of Community-Scaled Economies, and David Morris join host Christopher Mitchell to reflect on the role and nature of local policies and politics and the innovative economic structures communities are building.… Read More

In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Hannah Trostle and Karlee Weinmann, Research Associates for the Community Broadband Networks and Energy Democracy initiatives, respectively. The three discuss the cooperative model of ownership and how this model can enable investment in gigabit Internet connections for their member-owners, but also how they are subject to a low participation rates in their elections.… Read More

In this episode, Christopher Mitchell, the director of ILSR's Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews Brenda Platt, ILSR co-director and director of our Waste to Wealth initiative. The two discuss the history of ILSR's Zero Waste work and how the conversation around composting and waste has changed in her 30 years at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.… Read More

In this episode, John Farrell, the director of ILSR's Energy Democracy initiative, interviews Christopher Mitchell (our usual podcast host) and Lisa Gonzalez of our Community Broadband Networks initiative. The three discuss the power of municipal broadband networks, how the power held in cities is integral to these projects, and the barriers put in place by cable monopolies to prevent these networks.… Read More

In this episode, Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews David Morris, a co-founder of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and the director of the Public Good initiative. The two discuss the climate surrounding privatization in our economy and how the incoming Trump administration will bolster these efforts nationwide. Morris delves deep into the history of public infrastructure including explanations of how our language around the subject has changed over the years, privatization in other countries, and hope for the future.… Read More

In this episode, Chris Mitchell, the director of our Community Broadband Networks initiative, interviews a roundtable of ILSR staff members. Participants are: Olivia LaVecchia of the Community-Scaled Economies initiative, Karlee Weinmann of the Energy Democracy initiative, and Nick Stumo-Langer, ILSR's Communication Manager.… Read More