Buy Local has become the small business meme of this decade, but what does that mean for a small town? Does it mean buying from brick-and-mortar businesses in this online shopping era, or patronizing only independent businesses?
Historic towns and villages all over the country are fighting the growth of chain stores in their communities, as shown in this New York Times article. They believe these types of establishments remove the charm and authenticity of their municipalities. Even though chains are brick-and-mortar, they don’t consistently translate to being local.
While chains do provide jobs by hiring locally, the revenue made isn’t reinvested back into the community. However, small business owners are more likely to donate to non-profits (i.e. schools and the arts), spend some of their earnings in town, personal taxes are paid locally, etc.
Brooks Brothers will be replacing Banana Republic, and Urban Outfitters may also be coming to town in the Talbots spot after their two locations merge. Add these to Design Within Reach, Ralph Lauren, J. Crew, Kate Spade, Lindt Chocolates, Origins, Ann Taylor, et al, and it sounds like Princeton has a nice mall in town. But we all know this isn’t the case.
When Burger King left town several years ago, I thought it might’ve been part of a plan to weed out fast food franchises. Considering Subway opened a while back, Qdoba just opened last summer and Cheeburger Cheeburger will be opening soon, this proves my theory wrong.
This triggered the memory I have of a small Connecticut city. Stamford had a vibrant downtown including local shops, lots of restaurants, a theatre, and a museum, much like Princeton. Bedford Street was equivalent to Nassau Street until the Stamford Town Center opened adjacent to it in 1982. It was a mall that brought in big name stores, i.e. FAO Schwarz, Abercrombie & Fitch (the original concept), and Williams-Sonoma, anchored then by Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, and J.C. Penney’s. As a result, The New York Times featured an article about the mall titled A Town Sells Off Pieces of its Soul.
Princeton does NOT have a mall, but it does have many chains and franchises that are often mall tenants. It’s my belief that our zoning and planning departments consider chains an asset, but what about Princetonians? Are they ambivalent about the topic? Has Princeton sold off pieces of its soul to be more cosmopolitan, or does it maintain the right mix of chains and local businesses?
The Buy/Shop Local movement is gaining traction across the country. Hometown Princeton and Small Business Saturday (thanks to American Express) are certainly trying to influence people to patronize the independents, and they help even out the playing field a bit with their shop localcampaign. After all, isn’t there supposed to be some sort of home court advantage? Local businesses understand the community’s culture. Unfortunately in this economy, the bottom line is price, and chains have more buying power and powerful advertising as an advantage.
Mrs. G’s in Lawrenceville is combatting this problem by being a member of a national buying group offering competitive pricing to go head to head against the big box stores. The small business owners of The Terra Momo Restaurant Group and Hamilton Jewelers have multiple locations, and can benefit from their buying power and/or long-standing presence in the community, but what happens the rest, especially newcomers?
Looking at the downtown areas of Hopewell Borough, Pennington, and Lawrenceville, it’s clear that they are striving to keep their charm without chains, yet they still have healthy central business districts, proving that it’s not necessary to bring in the big guns. And yes, Mercer Mall in Lawrenceville, is home to many formula stores and franchises, but the businesses in the Main Street Historic District is still able to maintain the feel of Americana.
Should Princeton fight to keep out chains to preserve its historic charm and be more sustainable, or embrace them to give customers the brands/services/food they want? Chains could lessen the need to travel to malls or the city, reducing our carbon footprint. Does buy local mean shop in town or only buy from independent businesses? What are your thoughts?
Great examples of local towns nearby that can do it successfully. I would also mention Lambertville in that mix and many Bucks County towns. I'm very angry that Princeton can't do it on that level.
-Princeton as a whole, has an identity problem. Is it a small town? A small city? A suburb? A college town? -Many locals have left. Many people I know had enough of being taxed out, or high rents and live in many of the surrounding towns now. There is an influx of suburban types that love chains. A lot of people I know who have lived here for a long time have left and were replaced by people who prefer mcmansions and chains. Ironically that's why I moved here, to get away from them and several years later here they come. The entire vibe has changed. -Lots of social issues as well having to do with what I just listed. Classicism, veiled racism, economic elitism etc. There's a lot of denial of what's going on here. The public portrayal of the town is one thing, the reality completely different. Many people get discouraged, uninterested and pack up and leave to somewhere more fitting for them. Certain types of people who can afford the high rents, high taxes etc move in in their place. -As a business owner (not brick and mortar), I speak to other business owners in town and many of them tell me how difficult it is to do business in town and deal with certain commercial property owners etc. I've spoken to others that moved shops to other towns, they had enough and left.
I'm not sure about being taxed out, btw, as Princeton's property taxes are on par with lower than many of the surrounding areas (Hightstown's taxes are double Princeton's, btw ). The difference between Princeton & other towns is that we can walk or bike to a variety of real places--libraries, restaurants, shops, yoga studios, movie theatre--all independently owned. Other towns do not have the walkability or variety. There are no grocery stores within walking distance of other towns, unlike here (there were 3 in 2008, now 2, one--Whole Earth--both locally sourced & independently owned). My friends in West Windsor complain about the lack of delivery & restaurant options. I'm not sure why anyone would go to Subway or Panera instead of Olive's, Qdoba instead of Chapin or Tortuga's, Starbuck's instead of Halo, Small World, or the Kiosk. Whole Earth has a better local & bulk dry goods selection than Whole Foods. We bought here because it was convenient for my husband to walk to work, & an ideal place to raise a family. It's not so small-town that nothing is open for dining before 11:30, which we found in Hopewell, and in what other small town would you find a world class library & record shop that gets They Might Be Giants to play a free concert & The Oatmeal for a TED conference? Or free classes at the university for residents?
I would love to see the people in Princeton get together and keep these chains out and embrace independent shops. There is a lot of talk about sustainability in Princeton, but I don't see it in action.
The toy, consignment, and specialty boutiques for food, clothing, & shoes are fantastic and personable. The rest are the staple preppy clothiers, which also suit the town well (highlighted unfavorably in other Patch articles). I wouldn't be surprised if Burberry opened shop here. Honestly, most of the shops are small & independently owned. I've never eaten or stepped foot in Subway, Starbuck's, Panera, or Qdoba--why would I? I can't imagine they attract new business, but they don't "offend" me because I really don't care--it's better to have a storefront filled than empty, for months or years. We arrived after Burger King was gone, but obviously that shop didn't do well enough to My problem with the article is that it, and previous articles, seem to paint Princeton as homogenous, which it clearly isn't, or on par with Paramus, which it also is far from. Until 5/22, I can even walk to the hospital. I will still be able to walk to the pediatrician's office. The post office is supposed to close, which is sad. We have a larger town than most. I doubt Subway attracts people to visit, but Lilly Pulitzer & Kate Spade certainly do, and their clientele will venture to Luxaby, Zoe, Jazams, GreenDesign, & Rouge.
Honestly--if you aren't seeing any of this in Princeton, you're not looking.
I'm not sure what you mean by "highlghted unfavorably in other Patch articles," but I wanted to point out that we've done in-depth articles on multiple independent businesses in town: jane, House of Cupcakes, Bai, Cloak and Dagger Bookstore, Bot, Princeton Tour Company, Tico's, Olives, Holsome, Olsson's, Luxaby, A Place to Bead, etc, etc.
Caralien, why do you think Patch highlights preppy as unfavorable? I'm preppy and never felt that. Have you seen the post I wrote about being preppy here? http://princeton.patch.com/blog_posts/how-preppy-is-princeton
Like I mentioned above, we have an identity problem. I've lived in a couple of locations around town over the last couple of years and I see people moving out. I used to have interesting mixes of neighbors...professors, artists, artisans, authors architects. Now replaced by entire blocks of stock brokers, corporate execs, bankers and lawyers. Not a crowd that's really into green and sustainable. Half of my block doesn't bother to recycle. Another example I read about recently, might have been on this Patch: lawn pesticides. If it's that much of an issue, why not ban them? Dozens of other town sin NJ have done so, some many years ago. Why can't Princeton? We have a start here with so many things "sustainable"...but there needs to be a united movement and an identity. Too many different things going on and agendas. There are big things gearing up in some of the towns mentioned in these comments.
At first glance, downtown Princeton has a ton fo shops and restaurants. The restaurants, as I've mentioned in other topics, only a handful are real good and I'm glad some of them came out on top in recent polls on this Patch. Shopping is lacking. The borough is what, two square miles? How many ice cream and yogurt shops do we need? Or salons? Nail places? Restaurants that serve the same type of ethnic foods? Flower shops? You can easily cut out half of any of those categories and be just fine. Caralien mentioned that we have more of things than say Hopewell. Yes, we do. But we have multiples that we don't really need. And many of those towns are just as walkable. I was in downtown Pennington today on a business related errand. I walked everywhere, lots of local businesses right downtown.
We aren't Lambertville, and we have always had stockbrokers and financial investors living in Princeton--it's a nice place. I just don't see the issue. If it were not for their property taxes, we would be paying higher property taxes. New immigrants live here, they're priced out of the other pretty towns. It irks me when people complain about what is good here. We have more than .5-1 mile of retail. Cheeburger is laughable, as is horrid Naked Pizza, but that's okay. I'm still happy with Cross Culture. Da's Thai didn't fare well when it moved. Mistral & Agricola (in addition to Terra Momo group) like local producers. It just seems silly that so many complain about everything, leaving blinders up to what is actually good. Look around--Princeton remains more colourful in terms of people, religion, income, & sustainabilty than the towns that surround us, yet that too isn't good enough. We so far won on the Kiosks, but lost on the Alexander buildings & Dinky It's a big small town. Busloads of tourists don't drop off in Lawrenceville, Hopewell, Pennington, Moantgomery, or West Windsor. We can also walk to grocers & 2 farm markets