Ithaca Local Economy Lab -- Radical Experiments in Business and Community

Ithaca Local Economy Lab Real experiments in 'radical' alternative economics — from one unusually interesting small city Ithaca, NY once printed its own money. Ithaca HOURS circulated for decades, valuing a plumber's hour the same as a professor's, keeping millions of dollars of spending power inside the community. It was radical. It worked. And it was just the beginning. Today, a worker cooperative runs one of the best-loved coffee shops in town. A shared commercial kitchen has made food entrepreneurship accessible to people who couldn't otherwise afford the infrastructure. A fiber cooperative is doing the slow, deliberate work of rebuilding a regional textile economy from sheep to shelf. An antique mall operates as a genuine community enterprise. A local business runs on gifting — and is still standing. Ithaca Local Economy Lab documents these experiments across regenerative, circular, solidarity, and gifting economies. Hosted by Dia, local economy nerd and community-minded neighbor, each episode is a real conversation with the people inside one of these models. The reality of how it was built, how it's financed, what it's taught them, where things went wrong, and how others can learn the lessons. Inside the show: Ithaca HOURS: the local currency that kept money working locally and what it proved LocalFiber: regenerative fiber production and a blueprint for local textile economies Shared Kitchen Ithaca: circular infrastructure that removes the capital barrier from food entrepreneurship Gimme Coffee Cooperative: solidarity ownership in daily practice, governance, profit-sharing, hard decisions Found in Ithaca: what happens when an antique mall becomes a genuine community enterprise The gifting economy: one Ithaca business proving generosity can be a sustainable model For entrepreneurs in smaller cities building something that lasts. For curious people who want examples over arguments. For anyone who's ever thought: the economy is a design, not a law of nature — so who gets to redesign it? Ithaca has been answering that question for over thirty years. Come listen. 📅 New episodes monthly on the first Thursday 🌐 IthacaLocalEconomyLab.com ⭐ Support independently: patreon.com/Practicalmuse