Small Town Financial Sustainability in East Pierce?

It's no secret that I've long wondered how East Pierce can be more sustainable. I'm always thinking aloud, and with other creatives, about topics like: how much food can we grow local, how can we restore degraded habitats, how can the salmon runs be improved, how can we drive less.

But, to be truly sustainable, a small town or a region needs foremost to be financially sustainable. In Sumner, where I currently live, taxes are incredibly low. This was done through developing North Town into a wide swath of warehouses and industry, erasing the farmland that used to be there. Products made there range from relatively benign to abrasive.

Let's be honest: I don't like all that asphalt. But what's the alternative? Locals need nearby jobs. The products made there are used by local residents (albeit through a circuitous corporate route). The input and output of all those resources also employs a trucking industry. And taxes are low.

Well, to help kickstart a vision of a more sustainable alternative, I now bring to the table the wonderful book by Ben Hewitt, recently borrowed from the Sumner Library, called The Town that Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food.

How does this apply to Sumner or Bonney Lake, or even Buckley, Carbonado? Well, we all eat and, heck, that isn't going to change anytime soon. We also have very productive soil in this area, and if we're wise we won't change that. Additionally, our recession is causing us and our next generations to face uncertain times in the realm of jobs, security, and food costs. I for one would much rather embrace these issues on a local, honestly stable level, then debate the merits of huge government inefficiencies and debt ceilings.

Hewitt writes:

Over the past three years, this little hard-luck burg with a median income 25 percent below the state average and an unemployment rate nearly 40 percent higher has embarked on a quest to create the most comprehensive, functional, and downright vibrant food system in North America. In the process, Hardwick, Vermont, just might prove what advocates of a decentralized food system have been saying for years: that a healthy agriculture system can be the basis of communal strength, economic vitality, and general resilience in uncertain times.

The Hardwick area boasts a plethora of local farms, an organic seed company, a community composting operation, a natural food co-op (that 1/3 of the town's residents are members of), a home butchering business, a restaurant/bar that serves local in-season foods, and specialty companies that make cheeses and soy milk. When added up, it all employs, and feeds, a sizable number of people.

What could this mean for Sumner? Our problem is this: we are spending most of our money on products and jobs that don't support our communities. For every $1 spent at a local business, 45 cents stays in the community and is reinvested locally; for every $1 spent at a corporate chain store, only 15 cents stays in the community and is reinvested locally. If you spend on local business owners who are especially committed to this area, than much more than that 45 cents sticks around.

In Permaculture we talk about the concept that "The Problem is the Solution". In this instance, the solution of locally grown food, local vendors, local eaters, and local farmland, is obvious. I for one can't wait to spend all my money on local products, and to get all of my paycheck from those who value food in my region.

Read the book. Let's start scheming together.

Special thanks to the Pierce County Gleaners who have monthly book club meetings I've never made it to. And to Holly Foster from Zestful Gardens, for suggesting that they read this book.