Ithaca Local Economy Lab
Dia
A podcast about the economic revolution happening right here in Ithaca, NY — exploring the businesses, cooperatives, and community organizers reshaping what an economy can look like.
Episodes
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 as lending a neighbor a cup of sugar. “The community tries to help each other out.” Theresa is the coordinator of Mutual Aid Tompkins —...
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 owner of this co-op.” She did not suddenly become a real-estate mogul. The ownership structure changed what was possible. McKenzie Jones is a founding member...
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, and a ballpark number to go with it: roughly $70,000 per decade for an average NYSEG household, closer to $90,000 once sewer and trash are...
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 mom in Hector whose 1850 farmhouse was so cold and drafty that she lost her in-home daycare business. There is a woman with cerebral palsy,...
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 decision got made. After this conversation, they might. Claire Christensen is the Executive Director of Gimme! Coffee — which means she runs the place day...
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 radical: he printed money. Not counterfeit dollars — something more interesting. A labor-backed local currency called Ithaca HOURS, where one note equaled one hour of...
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 Found in Ithaca, a multi-vendor antique and vintage mall, mentioning that they wanted to sell. “Excuse me?” they said, in near unison. Six months later,...
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 business. Packaged goods, sold wholesale to grocery stores and distributors, might be one of the best. Rod is the founder and executive director of Shared...
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 get five skeins for $25. And I said, I’m not competing with Walmart. My product is totally different from what Walmart’s offering.” Lisa Ferguson is...
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 built his entire practice around fixing it. Matt has been in healthcare for over 25 years, the last 19 as a nurse practitioner: family practice...