Author Stacy Mitchell

Stacy Mitchell, author of BIG BOX SWINDLE:  The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses speaks in Bellingham to launch Buy Local Week."Large retail chains have become the most powerful corporations in America and are rapidly transforming our economy, communities and landscape. In this deft and revealing book, Stacy Mitchell illustrates how mega-retailers are fueling some of our most pressing problems, from the shrinking middle class to rising water pollution and diminished civic engagement.Mitchell's investigation takes us from the suburbs of Cleveland to a fruit farm in California, the stockroom of an Oregon Wal-Mart, and the Main Street of a Pennsylvania town. She uncovers the shocking role government policy has played in the expansion of mega-retailers and builds a compelling case that communities composed of many small businesses are healthier and more prosperous than those dominated by large chains.More than a critique, Big Box Swindle draws on real life to show how some communities are successfully countering the spread of mega-retailers and rebuilding their local economies. Mitchell describes innovative approaches, from cutting-edge land use policies to small business initiatives, that, together, provide a detailed road map to a more prosperous and sustainable future."