Building Local Power offers thought-provoking conversations and new ideas for breaking the hold of corporate monopolies and expanding the power of communities to chart their own future.
Every two weeks, we bring you interviews with trailblazing lawmakers, scholars, business leaders, and advocates, plus conversations with the Institute’s own in-house experts, who share their latest research and reporting.
Subscribe to the podcast feed: iTunes, Stitcher, or RSS/XML.
New episodes are published bi-weekly on Thursdays. Sign up to get new podcast notifications.
Recent Episodes of Building Local Power
Housing Is Where the Heart Is
Luke Gannon
May 18, 2023
Jasmine Harris, a Louisville Tenant Organizer, turned to activism after her roof started caving in to ensure that every resident in Louisville has safe and affordable housing. Tara Raghuveer, Executive Director of Kansas City Tenants, discusses how private equity firms exploit the housing market and government reforms to protect tenants' rights. READ MORE
Composters Dreaming, Investors Scheming
Luke Gannon
May 3, 2023
In this episode of Building Local Power, three community composters detail how the biggest challenge in developing their program is funding. Jessica Toth joins the second half of the episode to outline how the very people implementing solutions to lessen our carbon footprint — while providing jobs and education in a circular food system — are underfunded. READ MORE
Graying of the Fleet
Luke Gannon
April 18, 2023
Twenty-five years ago, there were over 2,000 commercial shrimp boats in Mississippi. Today, that number has fallen to around 200. This trend is not unique to Mississippi: Across U.S. coastlines, commercial fisherfolk are seeing their way of life disappear. READ MORE
A Country with No Farmers
Luke Gannon
March 30, 2023
The rapid consolidation of agriculture across the U.S. has obliterated many small and mid-size farms and has posed monumental challenges for small farmers and consumers alike. On this episode, an onion farmer tells his story of how small and mid-size farmers across the country are going extinct. Sarah Carden weaves his story with the necessary policy decisions to build a more equitable farming system. READ MORE
A Food Oasis in North Tulsa
Luke Gannon
March 16, 2023
Aaron Johnson, founder and owner of Oasis Fresh Market in North Tulsa, Oklahoma, tells his journey of opening a grocery store to provide a refuge, safe place, and shelter to a community that had been a food desert for fourteen years. On the second half of the episode, Stacy Mitchell explains the policy decisions that have led to an increasingly consolidated grocery sector and the steps to take to support locally-owned, community-centric grocery models. READ MORE
Toledo Takes Dollar Stores to Church
Luke Gannon
February 28, 2023
Dr. Perryman, a life-long Toledo resident, tells his story of leading a religious, social, and political movement to empower his community and fight against dollar store proliferation. Kennedy Smith weaves Dr. Perryman's story into the national fight against dollar stores. She notes the harms that dollar stores inflict as well as the strategies communities can use to battle them. READ MORE
Shifting the Paradigm, One Community at a Time
Luke Gannon
December 29, 2022
For our final Building Local Power episode of 2022, we invited Co-Founder, David Morris, to offer a history lesson on the self-reliance framework that underpins ILSR’s work. He discusses how that framework has evolved over four-plus decades, the organization’s inherent aversion to bigness, and the successes and hardships of ILSR’s early years. READ MORE
Community Broadband’s Broad Appeal
Luke Gannon
December 15, 2022
On this episode of Building Local Power, Christopher Mitchell and Sean Gonsalves talk about the work that immediately lies ahead for the broad array of communities seeking to free themselves from the unbridled power of monopolistic Internet providers. READ MORE
Small Businesses Rise Up
Luke Gannon
December 1, 2022
On this episode of Building Local Power, three members of ILSR’s Independent Business team, Lauren Gellatly, Katy Milani, and Kennedy Smith, answer: What challenges are small, independent businesses facing? And what legislative solutions are on the way? READ MORE
Breaking Bad Energy
Luke Gannon
November 17, 2022
The three members from ILSR's energy team engage in a riveting conversation on the biggest energy stories from 2022, including the Inflation Reduction Act’s big funding for solar, the antimonopoly focus in the Biden administration, how utility companies are continuing to use their financial power to lobby against energy, and a new tool designed to bring distributed solar to more communities. READ MORE
Unpacking the Year in Composting
Luke Gannon
November 3, 2022
On this episode of Building Local Power, members of the Composting for Community team, Brenda Platt and Clarissa Libertelli, explain how their accomplishments in 2022 have impacted communities across the U.S. and forged a more sustainable future. READ MORE