I embarked on a new project this week. It's something I've long thought cities should do as cities already have the resources, information and responsibility to encourage economic growth but cities don't do these things so I've taken it on myself to do so.
It's based on the buy local campaigns that Greensboro and other cities have except that buying from local retailers only addresses half of the issue. You see, when you or I walk into a local retailer and buy a product made in China we haven't done everything we could have done to boost our local economy. As a matter of fact: we haven't done much at all to boost our local economy when you consider that the majority of what you paid your local merchant for that product still left Greensboro.
I'm not blaming this on local retailers either. In talking with many of them-- some I've known my entire life-- they simply don't always know where to buy local made products to stock on their shelves so they buy what distributors suggest they buy sometimes at a lower price and sometimes not.
So in the interest of helping consumers, retailers and manufacturers here in Greensboro grow the local economy I've started building EZGreensboro.com , an indexed searchable database of manufacturers and craftspersons large and small that do their actual manufacturing right here in Greensboro.
This sort of came about as we look for manufacturers to help us make parts for our Wackemall Mopeds and Scooters. You see, the cost of locally made parts isn't that much higher but thus far, the challenge has been in finding out who makes or can make what we need. After looking around for a while it hit me that I had all this info and an unused domain name so why not start putting it all together to share with others while we continue to search for the parts and the working capital we need to put our empty building to work.
In the meantime, if you're in Greensboro and you're in the business of manufacturing be it a multinational corporation or a one man or one woman operation, check out the site and send us what Greensboro needs to know about your company.
Just doing my little bit for the economic development of the city in which I live.
