Certainly the “Buy Local” folks are bringing to the forefront the discussion of an economic plan for downtown Newburyport. We have a Newburyport Master Plan, but I’m not sure that we have a recent municipal Newburyport Economic Master Plan for downtown Newburyport, MA. (I haven’t heard of one, but that doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist somewhere.)

You see, this is where I get in trouble. I am an artist (and now I guess a blogger.) I am not a “business” person in the traditional sense and I do not have a degree in economics, nor do I have an MBA.

In this area, I am a “neophyte.”

And I am now learning more about chain store stuff than I ever imagined.

It seems as if on this subject, Newburyport, MA could be at a crossroads.

How does one define “commercial progress” for Newburyport, MA in the year 2007?

Is it possible that we could sustain ourselves economically with individual locally owned entrepreneurial businesses? Of course I hearken back to the days when I first moved here and almost every business was locally owned, and I loved it. Could I be naïve in wanting to go back to that economic formula in the year 2007? That amazing sense of “community.”

Many people that I’ve talked to think it is very possible for Newburyport, MA to have a viable mix of chain stores and locally owned businesses. And that the chain stores could bring business to other locally run shops.

But of course there is the great fear that landlords would find “tried and true” chain stores so much more appealing than less “tried and true” local entrepreneur business human beings. Especially if those landlords don’t live in Newburyport, MA.

And of course there is the fear that Newburyport, MA would lose it’s “flavor,” and become yet one more bland, homogenous place to live, work, shop and play.

“Buy Local” decal
(Image used with permission)

I am very glad that the “Buy Local” folks have initiated this discussion. It is one that we in Newburyport, MA badly need to have outside of the business community itself, because what happens commercially downtown would affect all our lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

And what the “Buy Local” folks are suggesting, which never occurred to me, is that as residents, we have a choice, if we decide to use that choice, about how downtown Newburyport, MA would look like economically. We could choose what would or would not go into downtown Newburyport, MA the way Nantucket, MA, Bristol, R.I. and Ogunquit, Maine have done.

This is a radical and fascinating idea, and one that had never occurred to me.

Mary Eaton
Newburyport