Originally Posted by
gerv
We've been discussing this very topic for a long time. If you buy a book on Amazon vs your local bookshop. If you get Salmon flown in from Chile vs your local trout stream. If you look at the roughly $6k annual car cost vs what that money could provide the local economy.
Anything that can be sourced out of your own community is going to benefit your community rather than Roody's backyard.
That's why we look at the local bike co-op as a great community effort. The bikes are already in the community. Mostly sitting in basements. Rather than give Walmart and China the revenue, we provide a couple of extra jobs, get basements cleared out, keep landfills free of bikes... it all adds up.
I understand all that, but what suggests that the people who would be saving money by giving up their cars (money that currently flows out of the local area) are not going to spend it on Amazon or Salmon from Chile for example? Even if it occurred to every one of them, and they all tried to use only local products and services as much as possible, it still isn't that easy. The point being that the $127 million in that graphic does not represent "money that could stay" in the local economy. A fraction of that money
might stay in the local economy, but only if at least some of the individuals made a conscious effort and even then only they made an uncommon effort to research the sources of what they buy.