Our Fetishism for All Things Local
Everything’s got to be local these days.
Locally sourced. Locally-produced. Locally-based.
Don’t get me wrong: when I arrive in a new place, I immediately gravitate to businesses that capture its unique flavor and specificity. Indeed, I sometimes wish I lived in an earlier time when every city and town had its own department stores, its own banks, its own milk brands.
Moreover, my retail consulting practice is itself a small business, with a idiosyncratic approach grounded in the contrarian impulses of its founder and differentiated from the generic work product often churned out by its much larger rivals.
Even I, however, have started to feel that today’s fetishism of all things local has gone a little too far, veering into a form of protectionism that ultimately limits choice and experience.