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

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

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

By: Dia local economy nerd
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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

Practically Real Enterprises, LLC Economics Social Sciences
Episodes
  • The Anarchist Nextdoor - Blue Boxes and Mutual Aid

    The Anarchist Nextdoor - Blue Boxes and Mutual Aid
    1 Oct 2026

    Theresa Fulton coordinates 47 blue food-sharing cabinets across Tompkins County — open to anyone, stocked by the community, no questions asked. She joined Mutual Aid Tompkins during the pandemic without any background in community organizing (her PhD is in science education), and took over coordinating the cabinet network in 2022 when it had roughly thirty.

    The cabinets started when someone saw a little free library and thought: what if that was food? Volunteers built them, placed them from downtown Ithaca to Dryden, Freeville, Spencer, Lansing, and the rural towns in between. When Spencer lost its only grocery store to a fire in September 2026, Mutual Aid Tompkins added a second cabinet there within weeks.

    In this episode:

    • What mutual aid actually means in practice — and how it differs from charity
    • How 47 blue food cabinets serve a county of 100,000 people, stocked anonymously by the community
    • Why toilet paper and diapers are harder to get than food (you can't buy them with SNAP or WIC)
    • The accessible cabinet designed with disabled residents — 30 inches off the ground, reachable from a wheelchair
    • How a Facebook group of nearly 10,000 members connects people who need help with people who can give it often on the same day
    • How the whole operation runs on a few thousand dollars a year and a handful of committed volunteers
    • What Theresa would tell a small group wanting to start something like this in their own community

    Resources and Links

    • Mutual Aid Tompkins: mutualaidtompkins.com
    • Blue cabinet locations: mutualaidtompkins.com/food-sharing/locations
    • Tompkins County Workers' Center (fiscal sponsor): tcworkerscenter.org
    • Friendship Donation Network: friendshipdonations.org
    • Community Foundation of Tompkins County: cftompkins.org
    • Peter Kropotkin (mutual aid theory): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin
    • Ithaca Local Economy Lab: ithacalocaleconomylab.com

    The Practically Real Team:

    • Jake Gribschaw - Technical Advisor linkedin.com/in/jgribschaw
    • Stacey Cornelius - Associate Producer agencyofwords.com
    • Sonia Simone - Content Strategist remarkable-communication.com
    • Erin O'Shaughnessy - Creative Consultant psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/erin-o-shaughnessy-depoe-bay-or/373808
    • Yen Ospina - Artist yenospina.com
    • Carsie Blanton - Musician carsieblanton.com
    • Photography by Forest Floor Creatives forestfloorcreatives.com

    Produced by Practically Real Enterprises, LLC. Hosted by Dia
    Show more Show less
    45 min
  • How to Live in a Housing Co-Op

    How to Live in a Housing Co-Op
    3 Sep 2026

    What if housing offered more than four walls and gave residents a real voice in how they live? In this episode, Dia talks with McKenzie Jones, a founding owner of Ithaca’s Aurora Pocket Neighborhood Cooperative, about co-living, cohousing, pocket neighborhoods, and legal housing co-ops.

    Learn how these models can help people pool resources, share costs and responsibilities, build trust, and create a practical safety net without pretending community life is effortless.

    McKenzie explains why clear agreements, democratic decision-making, and “one member, one vote” matter, and how cooperative habits can begin without buying property: a shared meal, garden, snowblower, or offer of help can be a first step. Could your neighborhood do this? Listen and subscribe to the Ithaca Local Economy Lab.

    In this episode:

    • How a housing cooperative can actually work, who holds title, who decides, and what happens when someone can't pay
    • The decision-making matrix: the foundational tool co-ops use before they decide who mows the lawn
    • The surprisingly varied types of financing available to cooperative developers
    • The safety net: how housing co-ops are mutual aid and social justice juggernauts
    • Where housing co-ops and worker co-ops share the same principles
    • How to start building cooperative community right now, with no money and no paperwork

    Resources and Links

    • The Worker Place: theworkerplace.coop
    • Launch.coop
    • NASCO (National Association of Student Cooperatives): nasco.coop
    • Sustainable Economies Law Center: theselc.org
    • Co-Op Decision Matrix: www.stl.coop/coop-guide/decisionmaking
    • Ithaca Local Economy Lab: ithacalocaleconomylab.com
    • Foundation for Intentional Community: www.ic.org

    The Practically Real Team:

    • Jake Gribschaw - Technical Advisor linkedin.com/in/jgribschaw
    • Stacey Cornelius - Associate Producer agencyofwords.com
    • Sonia Simone - Content Strategist remarkable-communication.com
    • Erin O'Shaughnessy - Creative Consultant psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/erin-o-shaughnessy-depoe-bay-or/373808
    • Yen Ospina - Artist yenospina.com
    • Carsie Blanton - Musician carsieblanton.com
    • Photography by Forest Floor Creatives forestfloorcreatives.com

    Produced by Practically Real Enterprises, LLC. Hosted by Dia.
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 3 min
  • How to Own Your Power

    How to Own Your Power
    6 Aug 2026

    Every month, money leaves the house for electricity, heat, and gas, and every month it's simply gone. Paul Fenn calls that energy rent, and it costs about $70,000 per decade for an average NYSEG household.

    Fenn is the founder and president of Local Power, the consultancy Bloomberg once called the utility industry's number one enemy. He now administers the municipality of Ithaca's two energy pilot programs. One is the CCA, which buys electricity and gas in bulk for the whole municipality and is currently paused pending state regulators. The other is Own Your Power, which is open to renters as well as owners.

    Own Your Power helps participants design and buy energy systems on their own site or block: rooftop solar, heat pumps, hot water, storage, and a two-way EV charger that works as a battery, all run as one asset. This pilot takes on the soft costs of paperwork and design that can otherwise make these complete energy system solutions unaffordable.

    In this episode:

    • Why deregulation and LNG exports left New York households exposed to global gas prices
    • CCA versus Own Your Power: opt-out bulk buying (paused) versus opt-in ownership (running now)
    • How renters participate: modular equipment you can take with you, shares in a neighbor's system, buy-in written into a lease
    • Co-op, trust, or go it alone: three ways to own a system, including one with no meetings

    In or around Ithaca? Sign up at tompkins-gen.com. Anywhere else, CCA law already exists in about half the U.S., and Local Power works with communities in both halves.

    Contact

    • Own Your Power / T-GEN sign-up: https://www.tompkins-gen.com
    • Local Power: https://localpower.com

    Resources & Links

    • City of Ithaca Green New Deal: https://www.cityofithacany.gov/827/Green-New-Deal
    • Ithaca Local Economy Lab: https://ithacalocaleconomylab.com

    The Practically Real Team:

    • Jake Gribschaw - Technical Advisor https://www.linkedin.com/in/jgribschaw
    • Stacey Cornelius - Associate Producer https://agencyofwords.com
    • Sonia Simone - Content Strategist https://remarkable-communication.com
    • Erin O'Shaughnessy - Creative Consultant https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/erin-o-shaughnessy-depoe-bay-or/373808
    • Yen Ospina - Artist http://yenospina.com
    • Carsie Blanton - Musician http://carsieblanton.com
    • Photography by Forest Floor Creatives https://forestfloorcreatives.com

    Produced by Practically Real Enterprises, LLC. Hosted by Dia.
    Show more Show less
    46 min
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