Ithaca Local Economy Lab
Episodes
Every episode is a conversation about building a more resilient, equitable local economy.
The Anarchist Next Door: Blue Boxes and Mutual Aid
“The idea was to decrease people’s reliance on the government and increase your reliance on each other,” Theresa Fulton says, describing mutual aid as though the concept were as natural…
How to Live in a Housing Co-Op
Most people think homeownership means one household, one deed, and one set of bills. McKenzie Jones can say something stranger: “Technically, I own four houses in Ithaca because I’m an…
How to Own Your Power
Every month, money leaves the house for electricity, heat, and gasoline, and every month it is simply gone. Nothing accumulates. Paul Fenn has a name for that arrangement, energy rent,…
The Carbon Offset You Can Actually See – Sustainable Finger Lakes Climate Fund
There is an immigrant family somewhere in Tompkins County who bought their first home in the United States and spent the winter wearing their coats inside. There is a single…
Grounds for Change – How a Cup of Coffee Makes for a Better Economy
Most people walk into Gimme! Coffee and order a latte. They don’t think about who owns the espresso machine, who voted on the charitable donation policy, or how the packaging…
Ithaca HOURS – The Most Important Economic Experiment You’ve Never Heard Of
What If Your Town Printed Its Own Money, and It Actually Worked? In 1991, as the U.S. economy stumbled through recession, a community organizer in Ithaca, New York did something…
Found: One of the Most Radical Stores in Ithaca Doesn’t Look Radical at All
Almost exactly two years before this conversation, Vanessa Weber and Jeremiah Cigno overheard something at a flea market in Trumansburg that changed the trajectory of their lives: the owners of…
Is Shared Kitchen Ithaca the Future of Small Town Food Business?
A lot of people grow up thinking they want to own a restaurant one day. Rod Rotondi will tell you that’s one of the hardest ways to build a food…
LocalFiber — Weaving a New Economy From the Ground Up
“When I started selling yarn, my family looked at me askance and said, nobody’s gonna pay twenty-five dollars a skein for yarn when they can go down to Walmart and…
Beyond Insurance — The Healthcare Model That’s Changing Everything
“It’s not about patient care anymore. It’s about dollars, from pretty much all angles of the system right now. And that’s really frustrating for patients.” That’s Matt Simone, and he…
Caring for People and the Environment: An Introduction to the Ithaca Local Economy Lab
There’s one question behind everything on this podcast: what would an economy look like if it was designed to take care of people? Better tools help: a currency that works,…