Business journalist Spector celebrates the history of small, independent retail stores and how mom and pop businesses across the country still thrive on attentive customer service and community support.

Business journalist Robert Spector grew up working in his family's butcher shop in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, where he learned invaluable lessons about the independent retail business. Mom & pop stores have always brought people together, fostering a sense of neighborhood identity and camaraderie, and are the glue that connects people in big cities and small towns alike. Long fascinated by the "direct connection" people feel as merchants and customers when they do business in neighborhood stores, at shops that are not super-sized, but human-sized, and responding to the growing "buy local" movement across the country, Spector set out to discover the state, and the state of mind, of independent retailing in America. From a specialty soda pop shop in Los Angeles to a florist shop in Dayton, Ohio, from a bakery in Chicago to a bookstore in Washington State, mom & pop store owners shared their stories with him, revealing the spirit and tenacity of the small business owner, dealing with frustration and defeat as well as triumph and success. Spector also interweaves the history of independent retailing. The Mom & Pop Store reflects the story of this country, for it embraces and cross-references every ethnic group, and virtually every element of our society.

The breadth of this work will allow the reader to acquire a comprehensive and panoramic picture of the nature of innovation within a single handbook.

A classic Little Critter book perfect for Mother's Day! Mercer Mayer’s Little Critter is off to the grocery store with his mom and siblings in this classic, funny, and heartwarming book. Whether he wants to push the cart, pick the best apples, or get his sister out of the candy aisle, both parents and children alike will relate to this beloved story. A perfect way to teach kids about being on their best behavior!

A unique guide to the most interesting and useful 75 mom-and-pop businesses in New York City. This book explores the small gems of New York City that many locals and tourists do not even know exist. These surprising treasures have resisted change and held on to their old-world ways.

Revised edition of Retailing in emerging markets, 2011.

While traditional welfare efforts have waned, a new style of social policy implementation has emerged dramatically in recent decades. The new style is reflected in a panoply of Community Economic Development (ced) initiatives—efforts led by locally-based organizations to develop housing, jobs, and business opportunities in low-income neighborhoods. In this book William H. Simon provides the first comprehensive examination of the evolution of Community Economic Development, complete with an analysis of its operating premises and strategies. He describes the profusion of new institutional forms that have arisen from the movement, amalgamations that cut across conventional distinctions—such as those between private and public—and that encompass the efforts of nonprofits, cooperatives, churches, business corporations, and public agencies. Combining local political mobilization with entrepreneurial initiative and electoral accountability with market competition, this phenomenon has catalyzed new forms of property rights designed to motivate investment and civic participation while curbing the dangers of speculation and middle-class flight. With its examination of many localities and its appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of the prevailing approach to Community Economic Development, this book will be a valuable resource for local housing, job, and business development officials; community activists; and students of law, business, and social policy.