May 2006

A ‘quiet revolution’ is brewing
Independent businesses look to unite

By John Boyanoski

STAFF WRITER

Gene Berger’s dream is starting to become a reality.

The owner of Horizon Records in the North End has managed to cobble together other locally owned businesses into a small, but growing coalition to keep Greenville dollars flowing into Greenville stores.

Calling itself the Greenville Independent Business Alliance, the group is modeling itself after a similar effort in Austin, Texas, where small businesses banded together to become a force to be reckoned with.

The idea is to get people spending money in Greenville-owned stores as well as getting local government to recognize the need for growth and support of independently owned business.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t feel the time was right,” he said. “There is a spirit of solidarity. It’s a quiet revolution.”

This quiet revolution comes after years of more and more corporate franchises moving into Greenville as the region expanded in the 1990s. Many of these chains were welcomed with open arms by shoppers and elected officials.

However, a backlash of sorts has sprung up, which Berger believes is being fueled by several sparks.

The first is people are becoming “anti-Wal-mart,” he said. People are leery of major companies profiting on communities without putting a lot of money back into the area. A lot of this has been directed at the Arkansas retail giant, but it is spreading to other corporations.

The second is the large wave of people who have moved to Greenville in the last decade, he said. While they may be comfortable shopping in franchise stores they recognize, they eventually end up seeking out the types of businesses they found in their former hometowns.

That means people begin seeking businesses such as independent book sellers, different styles of food, neighborhood pubs and small grocers, he said.

“And when there not here, they start to push for them,” Berger said.

The third factor is a feeling Greenville was losing its identity. A lot of people looked at the eminent domain battles along Main Street and regardless of what they felt about the outcome, believed independent businesses needed to work together.

He pointed to a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored trip last Fall to Austin, where he and others learned about the “Keep Austin Weird” campaign. It was born when a book seller and record store battled a city-endorsed development of a major book chain across the street from them.

They eventually were able to get the new development scuttled.

“It was an eye-opening trip,” Berger said. “But it was also reaffirming of what we wanted to do.”

The base for independent businesses is here, Berger said. The alliance has about a dozen active members now, but it is trying to recruit more in order to give the group some teeth when it comes to addressing local issues.

The group will launch a Web site soon as well as begin a sticker campaign to let people know something is going in Greenville. Berger said the locally-owned businesses can give places such as Greenville an edge when trying to recruit large employers.

“People love to be here,” he said. “You can run a business from anywhere now so you need to give employees an incentive to move here.”

©2006 Greenville Journal

 

Fair Use Notice
This site occasionally reprints copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of issues and to highlight the accomplishments of our affiliates. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is available without profit. For more information go to: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

---