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If you Live in Santa Clarita, You need to Read this Article
December, 2008 - Issue #50
Publishers' Note: While the title of this piece may seem mildly alarmist, we at Inside SCV Magazine really do believe that the issue discussed here is of major importance to our community. Thank you for taking the time to read it - and thank you in advance for helping keep Santa Clarita strong.

Shop local. These two words have been thrown around Santa Clarita, and towns just like her, since, well, forever.

The concept is simple. When something needs to be purchased, spending your dollars close to home keeps your community more vibrant by supporting small, unique businesses and putting more sales tax funds in local coffers. Shopping local doesn't necessarily exclude big corporate "box" stores, but purists know that it truly entails spending money at mom and pop stops.

"Supporting
small businesses

is not an act of
charity but an
act of SELF PRESERVATION."


But if the idea of shopping local is easy to grasp, translating the philosophy into practice seems increasingly difficult. It is tempting to cram an entire holiday's worth of shopping into a singular trip to a generic, all-in-one super store.

Of course, what you see is what you get. Generic, all-in-one super stores sell generic, one-size-fits-all stuff.

Have you ever driven north on the 14 freeway and noticed the propagation of numerous other "small" towns? What makes them different than Santa Clarita? The cookie-cutter, desert-shaded homes are pretty much the same. Their freshly-paved streets are also proudly pothole free. The folks who live there seem nice enough.

But they aren't the same. Box store after box store line their main streets, but absent are family-owned restaurants and mother-daughter-owned clothing stores. All the Walmarts in the world can't provide the amount of personality that can be found on any single street in Old Town Newhall.

And yes, I am equating - albeit partially - locally-owned business with the impression that can be gathered about Santa Clarita as a whole. The backbone of civic pride, of local altruism, of community connection, is firmly planted in our town's mom and pop businesses.

They have decided to make the SCV an integral part of their dream, and they know that clean streets, a healthy community and a well-networked population are required for their own success. You only need to examine the donor and board member lists of our thriving nonprofit organizations to realize that most small businesses have made a real investment in Santa Clarita.

I've lived in this city before it was a city, and I can't remember the last time people were more concerned about the survival of our local small businesses. And worrying about their success or failure is a simple metaphor for what else we risk losing: our communal personality.

Because Santa Clarita is not a generic, one-size-fits-all city. It's a place filled with great people who do great things. It's a town that prides itself on quality: quality of character, quality of education, quality of life.

That's really what "shop local" comes down to; realizing that supporting small businesses is not an act of charity but an act of self preservation.

This holiday shopping season, we'll make a deal with you. Save the big box store trips for toilet paper and bulk-size potato chip buys. We promise to look the other way. But when it comes to items that can just as easily, and in most cases just as affordably, be obtained by patronizing a neighbor's eatery, law office, fashion or home boutique, we want to see you in a mom and pop.

Our community, as we know it, depends on it.
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