The measure of a city isn’t found in its skyline, but in its local businesses. As any tourist knows, great cities burst with unique establishments that reward window shopping, and any place that lacks this fine-grained economic life is fundamentally boring. Without small businesses, there’s no there there.
That’s why it was bittersweet to learn that the Metro Independent Business Alliance (MIBA), the Twin Cities largest voice for small businesses, had quietly shut down. The organization had its “final celebration” event last month and is calling it quits.
“COVID really disrupted our independent members’ businesses; it forced them to focus on their own survival,” explained Julie Novak, a long-time board member and organization treasurer. “One part of a member organization is networking and getting together, and when you’re a small business and trying to decide, do I pay rent or insurance or pay my employees or my membership as a business organization… well, it’s a pretty easy business decision.”
That explanation rings true for former MIBA members like Susan Zumberge, who owns Subtext Books, a long-time downtown St. Paul bookstore. She has a long list of challenges that have faced her bottom line in the last few years.
“We have been members since Subtext opened in 2012, because I believe small business needs some sort of organized voice,” said Zumberge. “But we are a dwindling breed, and it is easy to understand for several reasons.”
Membership-based business organizations like chambers of commerce are having a bad time of it lately, as COVID applied fiscal pressure in unexpected ways. On top of that, the strength of local organizations has long been in-person community building.
The pandemic put a stop to most of that, by placing businesses in fiscally stressful situations. It put a bind on groups like MIBA and other local institutions, and the result has been hard, no matter their specific angle.
At the same time, the basic argument for “buying local” hasn’t changed. The more that customers shop at locally-owned retailers, the more their dollars circulate in the local economy. Unlike national chains, independent businesses employ regional actors like accountants, attorneys, wholesalers and advertisers. Shopping locally keeps the Twin Cities’ economy stronger, and this is not to mention the social benefits of independent retail.
“When you go online and have [goods] delivered, I don’t know who you’re supporting… a big conglomerate I guess,” said Novak, who works as a commercial lender at St. Paul’s BankCherokee. “If you’re being thoughtful, I can rattle off the places that I personally go to day after day: the local pharmacy, the grocery store, the local bank, the local liquor store, the art supply store, the record store… all those places are here in our community.”
For example, Amazon currently has at least half the U.S. book market, and far more of the growing e-book sector. In other sectors, online retail has grown tremendously since the pandemic shifted our collective habits.
Twenty years ago, it was different. Back then, the movement for small business and to “buy local” seemed to grow out of the book trade. In St. Paul, the owner of a (long-gone) beloved bookstore, the Hungry Mind, had been at the forefront of organizing a broader movement. The Metro IBA grew out of that era when Barnes & Noble was the big villain – how quaint! – and the argument to “buy local” aimed to emphasize the importance of small businesses to communities.
“Stepping back, many of the problems in our economy now can be traced back to the decline of small businesses and rise of rampant corporate consolidation,” explained Lauren Gellatly, who works on the Independent Business Team for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), a nonprofit think tank. “The consolidation we’re seeing now compared to half a century ago is just astronomical.”
As Gellatly explains it, not all is lost. Bookstores are still the center of the small- business movement and are quietly growing in number again, despite Amazon’s dominance of the market. That’s a pleasant surprise given the dynamics around retail in general, where online shopping triggered waves of consolidation. Nationally, anyway, the small-business movement remains active.
“We can’t shop our way to a better economy,” Gellatly said. “The three pillars for the IBAs that are thriving today are, first, that core public awareness of the benefit to supporting independent local businesses. That hasn’t changed. But also [IBAs have to] create innovative business support programs in order to get the buy-in that they need to keep going. And the third piece of it is the advocacy piece…”
When it comes to advocacy, the ILSR would ideally like to see federal regulators break Amazon into smaller component parts, as they did with AT&T back in the early 1980s. Because Amazon doesn’t disintegrate its web commerce, online services, and other businesses, Gellatly argues that it’s impossible to regulate Amazon in its current conglomerated form.
Maybe things have fundamentally changed. Perhaps the arts of browsing, small talk and window shopping are dwindling away in the era of smart phones and ear buds, when literally half the country is a dues-paying member of Amazon Prime. At the same time, there’s a countervailing tendency to being online. Many people crave in-person experience, especially in certain sectors of the retail economy like the bookstores, hardware, restaurants and pharmacies that have remained resilient despite years of chain competition.
In downtown St. Paul, Subtext books is hanging on at Wabasha and 5th, even though downtown St. Paul has been particularly hard-hit by post-pandemic changes. Susan Zumberge’s biggest problems these days are making sure her parking spots turn over, and keeping access to the building open in the sometimes-unreliable skyway system.
“For us in particular as a downtown retail store, access in terms of parking spaces has been eroded,” said Zumberge. “[Plus] the rise of online sales, where our need for instant gratification is met: I think most folks who shop this way have no realization how their decision robs our communities of the vibrancy of small businesses. As booksellers we are perhaps the first type of business to have some resurgence, because we were the first to be targeted by Amazon.”
Meanwhile, the hundreds of small businesses dotting Twin Cities streets are carrying on, despite the turbulent economic times. Don’t take them for granted, because you never really know if the corner restaurant or neighborhood hardware store will be there tomorrow. The larger social movement around “buying local” might look different than it did the past, but the brick-and-mortar economy remains a key part of city life.
“Without them, our economy, our cities, our neighborhoods are just gonna suffer,” said MIBA’s Julie Novak, talking about our local establishments. “We need to continue to support local business, it’s just that, unfortunately, there’s one less voice out there shouting that message. But it’s been a great run.”
Bill Lindeke is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Geography, Environment and Society. He is the author of multiple books on Twin Cities culture and history, most recently St. Paul: an Urban Biography. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillLindeke.
