Energy: A New Green Paradigm

As the GOP convention approaches, I am sitting here listening to the Republicans explain their platform on Energy Policy on TV:  Increased Oil Drilling, building the keystone pipeline,  extracting oil and gas from the Canadian Tar Sands, increased use of Coal, relaxed standards for offshore drilling…..everything appears geared towards an explosion of dirty energy resources for “cheap energy” and Big Oil Profiteering.

Climate Change?  The Republicans don’t think government should address the issue.

Are they reading any news reports at all? Here are some of the news reports from the last 3 weeks:

In Iowa, about 58,000 fish died along a 42-mile stretch of the Des Moines River.   Biologists measured the water at 97 degrees in multiple spots.  (Toledo Blade)

In Connecticut, the Millstone Nuclear Power Station had to be shut down because the water in the Long Island Sound was too warm to effectively cool the reactor. (WWLP)

In Illinois, fish are dying in record numbers as state officials have raised the temperature at which water-cooled power plants can return water to area lakes and rivers. Hundreds of millions of gallons of water per day are now being returned into the waters at temperatures approaching 100 degrees. (Morris Daily Herald)

The weather has affected grain crops as well.  Corn futures– which sold for $2.00/bushel just 10 years ago -  have surged 60 percent since mid-June, closing yesterday at $8.075 a bushel.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently estimated U.S. corn yields will be at least 20% below the norm. 

(Business Week)  and (Forbes)

Of course, much of the grain that is being harvested is not going anywhere: The Coast Guard has closed an eleven-mile stretch of the Mississippi River near Memphis to shipping after another barge grounded near Greenville, Miss. (WANE.com)

And in Kansas, “Bare ground and stagnant ponds of water can be seen where a flowing Arkansas River should be.” According to The National Weather Service, the water has ceased to flow at I-235.“There's a quarter of a billion dollars worth of grain in the port of lake providence alone and guess what? we can't move the barge. so, we'll bring in trucks it will take 7,000 trucks. They don't exist,” said Louisiana Agriculture Commissioner, Mike Strain. (WKSN News)

 

And that means there's less water flowing down Mississippi river into the Gulf of Mexico, and less outflow means saltwater from the Gulf is creeping in.  Cities in Louisiana cities have had to purchase emergency drinking water…and the entire city of New Orleans is now at risk. (NPR)

The loss of grain crops also affect the livestock who feed on grain - and eventually, the price of meat on supermarket shelves.  And non-food livestock, such as horses, are affected, too.

Tony Caldwell, owner of an 80 acre horse rescue ranch in Indiana, reports “Everybody is using their winter hay now. The pastures are destroyed and they probably won’t recover before winter. The price of hay has doubled, and the availability is down by 75 percent…Today the problem is not nearly as bad as it’s going to be.  It’s terribly bad today, but it is going to get a lot worse.”  (Business Week)

The hotter weather will not only affect the prices of food, but of health care as well.  At least 8 deaths have been blamed directly on this summer’s heat, and that doesn’t count deaths, injuries, and property losses from western forest fires.  Nor does it include deaths labeled as ‘respiratory failure’ or ‘natural causes’ from the elderly living in homes without air conditioning.  And looming on the horizon is the nation’s largest outbreak of West Nile virus, fed by the drought.

The mosquito responsible for the West Nile virus flourished during the summer's record heat and drought.   Updated figures from the Illinois State Department of Public Health show extremely high numbers of the Culex pipiens species have tested positive for the disease — 71 percent in DuPage County and nearly 60 percent in Cook. Officials consider 10% problematic. National figures show 1,118 cases and 41 deaths have been reported to the CDC — the highest number of cases through the third week of August since the disease was first detected in this country in 1999, and a substantial jump from last week's tally of 693 cases and 26 deaths. And the number of reported cases through the third week of August this year is nearly three times higher than the average over the last 10 years, according to the CDC.  (Chicago Tribune)

 I don't care whether you believe that climate change is natural or man-made.  The incontrovertible fact is that our climate IS changing, and it IS warming, and it is CHANGING our landscape.  And whether this is part of a natural cycle or man-made, is immaterial:  We must respond to it if we are going to avoid more catastrophes like these.

How? By reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

(1) Higher Fuel Efficiency Standards for autos are a no-brainer.  I have been disgusted for the last several years attending the New York International Auto Show at NYC’s Javits Center, and reading the mpg statistics on new models.  The auto industry thinks it's offering something wonderful when a new car get 23 mpg.  They just don’t get it. (Actually, they do:  they can continue to offer crappy mileage because they can count on Republicans to obstruct fuel standards, and on Democrats to bail them out.)

(2) Amtrak and High-Speed Rail.  This country lags decades behind every developed nation in the world, including China, which has caught up and surpassed us on rail technology. While politicians throw money away on road projects for their home districts, subsidies for oil companies, sweetheart deals to ram through oil pipelines, exemptions for deepwater off-shore drilling safety devices, and auto company bailouts…..they wring their hands and hem and haw about investing in rail. And the Republicans seek to slash Amtrak's budget every year, rather than seeing trains as part of the solution to smog-choked highways.

(3) Energy-neutral Buildings.  In Europe, architects presume that a building that consumes more energy than it creates contains a Design Flaw. While the U.S. Congress continues to wring their hands over energy legislation, the European Union is requiring all residential buildings to produce nearly as much energy as they consume by 2020, in part by using renewable power sources. Public buildings will have to meet this standard two years earlier.  In urban centers, rooftop gardens and solar panels on a massive scale can lower temperatures, counter emissions, and save energy.

(4) Intolerance for Local NIMBY Obstructionism. Some of the most progressive, greenest, liberal people I know suddenly become ardent conservatives when windmills are proposed in their neighborhoods, or on mountain ridges that will impede their personal views.  Too Bad.  It is given to Congress and Congress alone to regulate interstate commerce, and if there is any product that crosses state lines, it is the national electric grid.  Far too many wind farms have been bogged down in local obstructionism, and it must stop.

(5) Local Farms, Local Food.  EVERY community needs to be a Right-to-Farm community (yes, even urban and suburban communities.) Uptight zoning regulations that outlaw chickens, restrict vegetable gardens from front yards, insist on crippling health regulations, and outlaw raw products need to go.  The Obama administration has been problematic on the left (FDA raids on raw milk farms), while snooty Republicans have used zoning to protect the landscape of their precious ‘burbs.  The more food that can be produced locally, the less food that has to be transported on the nation’s highways - and the fewer dollars and reliance on Monsanto and AgriBusiness.

We need more than Republicans who wear blinders, and Democrats who offer lip service to Energy Policy.  

We need a New, Green Paradigm.  Now.

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Dear Mike Huckabee: On the Issue of Rape, STFU.

 So, Mr. Huckabee, you feel a need to come to the defense of Rep. Todd Akin, the scientific ignoramus who believes that women who are raped don't get pregnant, because “…If it's a legitimate rape the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down..”

I give you credit: you realize the stupidity of that statement, and so you’ve tried another avenue of defense: you claim that extraordinary people – like Ethel Waters – were conceived as a result of forcible rape.  And with that as ammunition, you go on your merry way with your ivory-tower, ideological approach towards women’s health.

Well, I'll agree with you on one thing.  Sometimes the child who is conceived as the result of a rape can be extraordinary.

My daughter, who I adopted at the age of six weeks, is indeed extraordinary.  And she was conceived as the result of rape. She is brilliant, possibly a mensa genius, and at the age of 18 is traveling the world tutoring English and speaking several foreign languages.  She can put most adults to shame on any intellectual topic.

But unlike you, Mr. Huckabee, I met her birth mother.  A woman proud and dignified at the same time; broken yet proactive; determined yet resigned.  As she placed her newborn child in our arms, my heart broke for the woman making this decision to give birth and place her child for adoption….while at the same time I was awestruck and joyful at the responsibility and opportunity she had placed in our arms.  Like you, Mr. Huckabee, we saw the immeasurable, boundless possibilities in that life.

But unlike you, we also saw the pain and the angst and the emotional turmoil of the woman who placed her with us.  Unlike you, I see her decision as precisely that: HER decision, one that weighed on her every day, and which was hers and hers alone.  

Unlike you, Mr. Huckabee, I see the other side of an equation that you refuse to acknowledge exists: the humanity, the dignity, the intensity of a woman making a decisions about the future.

She was a black woman.  A woman who had given birth in jail.  A woman who was the victim of generational crimes within her family, and of the federal government’s War on Drugs.

She was the kind of woman whose vote you have attempted to suppress with your support for voter id laws.

She is the kind of woman whose constitutional rights you have attempted to remove because of her conviction of a felony.

She is the kind of woman who you have tried to impoverish and marginalize by removing social service programs and nets and rehabilitation efforts.

She is the kind of woman whom the Republican Party has used as a scapegoat in discussing matters of welfare and taxes.

And she is the kind of woman whom you would surround with politician-constrained doctors to examine and direct the course of her life.

Please, Mr. Huckabee, spare me your feigned concern about the future of America, and the potential for children conceived in rape.

You know nothing – and care nothing – for the humanity involved in these situations.

I am grateful for my daughter, and the decision made by my daughter’s birth mother.  

But I also aware that the decisions were hers, and not yours. 

And it needs to remain that way.

Voter Suppression: Think a Photo ID is easy? Think Again . . .

 Around the country – and particularly in conservative circles – there has been a full-court press to require photo identification cards for voting.  From my perspective, this is nothing more than voter suppression: an effort to prevent those least likely from having photo ids (students who do not drive yet; senior citizens who no longer drive; immigrants; minorities; those whose drivers licenses expired while they were homeless, incarcerated, or being foreclosed upon).  But I have run into some fairly reasonable people who don’t see why it is so hard to require a simple picture id in order to vote (in spite of the fact that there is no widespread, documented voter fraud anywhere in the country).

And while I am often quick to share my own adventures, I am somewhat guarded when speaking of my children, all of whom are adopted, and all of whom ‘own’ their own stories; I am reluctant to speak ‘about them.’  But this voter id nonsense gives me a platform to explain just how this impacts people – real people.  And so, here are the tales of two real people, eligible voters, both of whom are my children (names changed), and both of whom went through hell trying to get proper identification, though both were eligible and American citizens.

Flashback to 1986.  A young two year old boy ("David") and his five year old sister are found wandering the streets of Brooklyn, NY.  Some neighborhood residents see the children, and ask where there mother is, and if they are lost. The five year-old is unsure of the specific events, but makes it clear that her mommy had sent them away and was gone.  They were walking around looking for something to eat and a place to sleep.

As is culturally common in urban black communities where suspicion of authorities runs high, a grandmotherly woman (“Vera”) took the children into her house and fed them, as people fanned out in the neighborhood trying to find the children’s mother.  That woman was never found, and so David and his sister stayed at Vera’s house. (Social workers in urban black communities are very aware that in these circles, children are much more likely to be informally cared for by relatives and friends  than ‘put through the system.’)

Before long, David and his sister grew attached to Vera (and vice versa),  and, in spite of her distrust of authorities, Vera went to the NYC Department of Social Services to obtain legal foster care of the children.  In a typically bureaucratic action, the Department took physical custody of the young girl, reasoning that Vera was too old to care for her, but left David in her custody and began the foster care paperwork. With the children split up, any hope for learning more of their origins disappeared.

In time, Vera and David would leave NY and join Vera’s extended family in Massachusetts. David was enrolled in school, and life was ‘normal’ – until Vera developed cancer.  I had come to know Vera through community activities, and, on her deathbed, she asked if I would take David into my house when she died.  I agreed, and David became my son. Upon her death, I went to the courthouse and asked for Legal Guardianship of David, which was granted.

Around this time, I was planning a trip overseas, and needed to get David a passport.  And that’s when the fun really began.

I had legal guardianship of an adolescent boy who had no birth certificate.  The foster care paperwork begun in New York with Vera had never been finalized, and so even her ability to legally place him into my care was questionable.

In an effort to ‘do things right,’ I went to the State Department in Boston to try and explain everything and obtain a passport for David.  I brought with me all the paperwork I had, and made my case. I gave them Vera’s certified death certificate, and the incomplete foster care paperwork, and the court-ordered guardianship papers.

What I never realized was that since Vera had lost David’s sister to The State due to her age, she lied on the foster care paperwork for David about her age – by ten years.  The eagle-eyes at the State Department saw that Vera’s death certificate and her foster care paperwork had different birthdates for Vera, and I was arrested, under suspicion of attempting to smuggle a child across international borders.

If not for the fact that I had a political job with strong ties to then-Senator Ted Kennedy’s office, I would have spent the night in jail, but some quick phone calls and wrangling from the Senate  freed me.

In time, I would approach a Judge (who knew my family), who would issue a court order directing the State Department to issue a passport for David.  We would then go backwards, and, using the Passport, demand a Birth Certificate from the City of New York (who could find no such record, but, in the face of a passport, assumed they lost it, some they issued us one).  And then finally, three years later, David would get a drivers license.

It is easy to point fingers here: Vera shouldn’t have taken him in, should have reported him and his sister to authorities immediately, should have completed the foster care paperwork, should not have lied about her age. 

But we are not talking about Vera (and unless you understand the fear and suspicion in minority communities when it comes to social workers and police, her actions may be hard to understand, but Vera was a *survivor* in a system stacked against her).  

We are talking about David.  A child buffeted by the winds of adult’s decisions – and who, if not for my own political and judicial connections, might still be a ‘non-person.’ A non-person who still has a right to Vote.

But David’s story is nothing compared to my son Thaddeus.

Thad was born in Trinidad, and legally adopted by me in the 1990s.  That means that both his Passport and Birth Certificate are issued by Trinidad, and his Adoption Certificate is issued by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (the story of how it took over a year to get him into the US because of stupidity at the US Immigration Office in Boston is another story, but not germane to this one…)

The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 (8 U.S.C. 1101) provides as follows:

“A child born outside of the United States automatically becomes a citizen of the United States when all of the following conditions have been fulfilled:

1) At least one parent of the child is a citizen of the United States, whether by birth of naturalization;

2) The child is under the age of eighteen years;

3) The child is residing in the United States in the legal and physical custody of the citizen aprent pursuant to a lawful admission for permanent residence”

This is FEDERAL LAW.  It is mind-boggling how many bureaucrats, when given a copy of the law and Thad’s paperwork, simply stare and blink, afraid to think and take reasonable action.

Thad is an American citizen.  He has a U.S. Social Security Card.  He went through all the explanations, discussions,  and repeat visits to the New Hampshire Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain his driver’s license.

And then he moved to New York.

Trying his best simply to follow the law, get a job, and be responsible, he went to a potential employer and was required to fill out the federal I-9.

Unfortunately, his Trinidadian passport was not seen as valid.  His adoption certificate was not valid.  His Social Security card didn’t have a picture.  His Driver’s License was from New Hampshire.

So Thad, now living with his grandmother in NY, went to Motor Vehicles in Westbury to turn in his NH License and get a NY Driver’s License.

After hours (literally) of lines, he was rejected, because the state of New Hampshire had misspelled his name – Thaddeus – as Thaddues. He was told he must have a corrected NH License before he could be granted a NY license. 

But New Hampshire will only mail licenses to an individual at their personal NH residence, and Thad  now lived in NY, so that couldn't happen. After many phone calls and research, the NH Department of Transportation agreed to send a certified letter to Thad admitting their error on the original license.  Armed with that document, Thad went back and spent another half-day at NY motor vehicles.

In spite of the Federal Law, and in spite of being told earlier that all he needed was a corrected NH license, he was now told that wasn't enough; he would have to have a US Passport to obtain a driver’s license. (Why?  You don't need to travel abroad in order to drive domestically!  But the Automotons at Westbury want to cover their asses, not serve the public.)

So, $260 later, Thad eagerly awaited the package from the Dept of State (and all during this time he couldn’t get a job, or drive, in spite of having a job lined up and being more than willing to work ).

The U.S. Department of State rejected his application for a U.S. Passport.

Why?  Because in spite of having a certified adoption certificate and everything required, the State Department decided that they needed to have the Docket Number of the original court case when Thad’s adoption was finalized.  (This is the number that is used by courts for scheduling hearings, but it is not normally transcribed on adoption certificates in Massachusetts, or elsewhere for that matter).

So, back to Massachusetts to get a docket number – except that the court that originally approved Thad's adoption had been closed for budgetary reasons, and all records were sealed and boxed in a warehouse somewhere in Boston, and it would take days, perhaps weeks, to find this specific record.

Miraculously –  on a 17-year-old scrap of paper shoved into his adoption file, I had written down the court hearing information from that day long ago  - and had included the docket number.  We forwarded the information, and the State Department was contacted again.

On Saturday, Thad’s US Passport arrived.  Yesterday, Thad returned to Motor Vehicles in Westbury.

As is always the case in Westbury, the lines were long and the wait interminable.  As the hours ticked by, his 72-year old grandmother, who accompanied him, needed to make a phone call as she was running late for an appointment.  To be polite, she stepped out into the lobby.

While she was talking, the guard locked the door. Apparently, Quitting Time had come to Motor Vehicles. 

In the meantime, Thad was inside, with 26 people still online in front of him.  When he got to the counter, he had everything except the fee to pay for the license, because his grandmother had it. 

They wouldn't let her back in.  They wouldn't let her pass the check to Thad.  They wouldn't let her pass it to the guard to pass it to Thad.

So today, they will go back to Motor Vehicles and see what adventure lies in store.

The moral of these stories?

Those of you who think a photo id is a simple matter, think again.   The Republican efforts to require photo ids is designed to frustrate and delay and disenfranchise.  If my two sons – both of whom are legitimate American citizens – have to go through this nonsense just to prove who they are – how many persons, with less tenacity, fewer resources, less ability to spend money or spend days on line, with fewer political connections….will simply give up?  

And isn't that the Republican's real goal?

Voting in the United States is a Constitutional Right – not an award to be earned by running a bureaucratic triathlon.  

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Small Business Series 5: Choosing Credit Unions over Banks

Since 2008, we have been awash in news revealing the greed, reckless investing, fees, and foreclosure fraud (and brutality) engaged in by America’s largest banks: The Bank of America, Citibank, J P Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and other multi-state and multi-national banking powerhouses.   Each received bailouts from Washington politicians of both parties – bailouts that were given, supposedly, because they were “too big to fail.” Many people feel like they have no choice but to complain about and accept what they can not change.

But we don’t have to be treated as serfs by these banks.  There are several solutions, including breaking up the largest banks, and separating investment and lending activities – but politicians have thus far proven reluctant to touch these.  

One solution lies squarely in the hands of the American citizens: A transfer by average Americans of their money out of the banks, and into credit unions.

I began using a credit union years ago in New Hampshire ( The Cheshire County Federal Credit Union ), and will never go back to banks again. Having moved to Massachusetts, I look forward to my new account at   Freedom Credit Union. At credit unions, I get better rates, and fewer and lower fees; the tellers know my name the moment I walk in the door; the service is personal; and my money stays in my local community, which increases economic development and creates local jobs.

Credit Unions function as banks, but they are non-profit institutions, so they do not answer to shareholders; rather, they are run by, and answer to, their depositors.  They generally provide the same services as banks: savings accounts, checking accounts, debit cards, credit cards, loans, direct deposit of paycheck, online account management and bill pay features. When I was concerned about my ability to use my credit union debit card when traveling to New York City, not only did i find that it worked in every store and ATM I used, I also was able to use a network of over 100 ATM machines in Manhattan (80 operated by Actor's Federal Credit Union) with NO FEE! 

When you choose a Credit Union, you are investing in your neighborhood and Main Street - not providing cash for a gamble on Wall Street hedge funds or fee-based mortgages that are bundled and sold off to another financial investment firm.  In 2008, Wall Street’s corporate banks demanded a bailout of $700 billion…and while the size of these Wall Street “Banksters” threatens our economic system, their size has actually increased since we bailed them out. According to FDIC data, the largest 5 banks held only 13% of US deposits in 1994; today they hold 38%. If the government won’t step in and apply Antitrust statutes to the Banking Industry and break them up, then we can do it ourselves and end ”Too Big To Fail” once and for all.

Changing financial institutions is not a one-step, or an easy one, but it is worthwhile.

1) Research your local credit union options. Find one here: USA Credit Unions
2) Then, open an account with the one that best suits your needs.
3) Cancel all automatic withdrawals & deposits from your old bank
4) Transfer your funds to the new account, keeping some cash available until your new checks and debit card come through
5) Follow your bank's procedures to close your account.

Start NOW , because between your debit card, credit cards, direct deposit of paychecks, and automatic bill pay, the banking world has you practically captive, and it will take a little time to get out from under their grip. But you can take pride when you invest in your community, and restore the 'human' element to your financial transactions.

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Small Business Series 4: Nanette Lepore, and the Textile & Apparel Industries

 In 1960, 95% of clothing sold in the United States was made in the United States

Today, that figure is 2%. 

No, that was not a typo.  TWO per cent.

The Textile and apparel industries in America have been decimated by outsourcing and the consumer’s embrace of cheaply made, mass-produced clothing imported from abroad. Between 1994 and 2005, the United States lost more than 900,000 textile and apparel jobs to overseas operations. 

And yet, there are still 846 fashion companies headquartered in New York City, most in a small area of Manhattan known as ‘The Garment District,” (or the " Fashion Center "),  bordered, roughly,  by 5^th and 9^th Avenues to the east and west, and 40th and 34^th streets to the north and south.   They employ 24,000 people in all steps of the apparel industry: designers, pattern makers, cutters, sewers, accessory manufacturers, fabric importers, dyers, synthetic fiber fabricators, weavers, spinners, marketing specialists, wholesalers, and retailers.  Though only a tiny fraction of the number of jobs that have been lost,  (2.6%), they forge ahead in spite of devastating competition from industrializing nations such as Honduras, Pakistan, and China, where textile wages are less than the U.S. equivalent of $250/month.  And in spite of this competition, there are still more apparel workers in NYC than in the other big three fashion capitals (London, Paris, and Milan) combined. New York City has been and remains, the Fashion Capital of the World.

While interested in the industry in a general way for some time, I became even more ‘drawn in’ on my first visit to  Nanette Lepore,  a NY clothing designer headquartered on the 17^th floor of 225 W. 35^th Street, in the heart of the Garment District.  Joining up with college students from three different schools like a pilgrimage, we were escorted to the proper room by none other than Nanette’s husband, who joined us in the elevator.  As we exited, we were greeted by Erica, a Lepore marketing professional who had arranged to take us on a tour of this proudly American business.  I should point out that this was not a tour of the 'retail face' of the designer, or of her shops in Soho, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bal Harbour (FL), or Boston.  This was the nitty-gritty, daily-decision-making, cutting-and-stitching hands-on nerve center of a fashion operation.

 Nanette Lepore is a crusader in the effort to save the American textile and apparel industries.  She is an underwriting sponsor of the television series “Project Runway,” and is a driving force behind the “Save the Garment District” campaign, which came into existence when zoning changes in New York City threatened to favor trendy, national, upscale restaurant chains over gritty industrial looms, garment racks, and dying vats. If anyone has prevented that “2%” figure from shrinking even further, it is Nanette.

 We were lead through the non-glamorous work stations of pattern makers and sewers, and finally made it to the showroom floor where, in April 2012, samples of the Fall 2012 were being displayed. 

Yes, we took pictures, but we promised not to release them to commercial websites.  



And so, I was excited to receive an email from Nanette Lepore last week, recommending the DGExpo (“Designer’s Guide Expo,”) a trade show and series of workshops designed to help small design businesses connect with providers who gladly work in "small lots,”  i.e., textile and apparel industry businesses that are happy to work with a small producer requiring 500 or 1,000 garments, rather than the tens of thousands demanded by Target or Walmart or even Macy’s. 

 (Side note: large Department stores like Macy’s are the death knell for small, upstart designers: their packaging, delivery, and tagging requirements – as thick as a phone book – permit ‘penalties’ against small producers, called ‘chargebacks,’ which can bankrupt a small upstart.)

So down to NYC we went.

All sorts of fabric and accessory companies filled the expo floor. From leather to fur to wood to silk to batik to hemp to metal, they shared one thing in common: they were small businesses, eager to work with small and new designers, to create cost-effective, unique, quality, American-made clothing.

I admit to falling in love with several of these companies.

Buttonology , located at 264 West 40^th Street, was delightful.  I was first attracted to their selection of beautiful wooden buttons, but, upon moving some samples, found some fun, whimsical rainbow-colored buttons that would be perfect on summer beach house ware.  

 Their minimum order?  A dozen.  Yes, that’s right – small quantities for small producers.  Founded 7 years ago by two partners, Buttonology has made a niche for themselves in providing a broad and unique array of non-mass-produced buttons and accessories.  It was fun just pawing through their samples.  

Across from Buttonology was a company I visited several times:    Hemp Traders, who had come all the way from 335 E. Albertoni Street in Carson, California.  Twenty years old next year, Hemp Traders is the largest supplier of the Hemp products in the world. 

Small business?  Absolutely.  Hemp Traders fights a daily battle with the purposely and genuinely ignorant about the nature of Hemp fiber.  

Hemp is simply an incredible plant product. Among the characteristics of hemp fiber are its superior strength and durability, and its stunning resistance to rot, attributes that made hemp integral to the shipping industry. Hemp fiber allows for environmentally friendly bleaching without the use of chlorine. It is 100% biodegradable. 

I had an image of Hemp as scratchy and sort of like burlap.  What I found were samples of hemp and hemp-cotton blends that were as soft as baby blankets.  No wonder George Washington grew and promoted hemp.  Too bad our current politicians have banned the production of industrial hemp from our shores….all hemp must now be imported, raising prices to American consumers and producers who would gladly use this fiber. Another example of small business strangled by bureauocracy . . .

The minimum order size for struggling new designers?

None.  Zero. Zilch. Nada.  

 No, really.

This is a company that wants to help the small producer, the new designer, the boutique artisan  - and they back it up with a quality product at a price that makes sense.  I fell in love with these guys.

In all, I got to visit with 65 companies: small companies, struggling and striving to remain afloat in a country that complains about poor job prospects, but then buys clothes from a sweatshop half a world away that poisons the water and abuses their labor.

I admit it: I love the Garment District. And I'm not alone:

Consider the following blog article, which appeared originally as "New York’s Fashion Industry Reveals a New Truth About Economic Clusters,"by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett and Sarah Williams, posted in the Harvard Business Review Blog on February 10, 2014. Minor editorial notes have been added by this blogger to clarify certain points above.

The week before Fashion Week in New York is perhaps the busiest in the city’s apparel industry. Frantic designers rush around looking for gold buttons with blue inlay, for seamstresses to make pleats and for patternmakers with spare fabric.  They make modifications to dresses in real time under enormous deadline pressures.

Yet when eyes eventually fall on the runways, they witness virtually glitch-less shows and talk-of-the-town creativity.  How does New York’s fashion industry continually pull off Fashion Week year after year?

The answer lies in a complex economic system whose informal origins date to the mid-19th century and whose central idea rests on geographical proximity. We’re talking about the Garment District, eight blocks in Manhattan where designers, wholesalers, manufacturers, fabric sellers, button makers, and seamstresses all work.

The idea that highly specialized concentrations of an industry like the Garment District offer significant economic advantages is hardly revolutionary. The automobile, steel, mining and textile industries similarly occupied proximate physical space, sharing resources, labor and information to their great economic benefit. As the great economist Alfred Marshall observed in 1890, industries that clustered together generated economic growth by virtue of something “in the air.”

Exactly what is “in the air” in places like the Garment District? For a long time, discussions on the benefits of economic clusters, or "business clusters," or agglomeration economies as urban planners call them, have been mainly theoretical or qualitative. Interviews, case studies and ethnographies tell us proximity matters to certain industries. Think Silicon Valley, Wall Street or Hollywood. Therefore, so the argument goes, cities ought to push policies that encourage the growth of spatially concentrated economic activity. But why — and how – these clusters work has remained a mystery.

To find out answers to these questions, we tracked 77 fashion designers working in the Garment District and the larger New York region over two weeks in July 2011 [Ed Note: generally considered to be 34th Street to 40th street, between 7th and 9th Avenues] Using their cellphone data and a social-media tool we tracked their geographical movements and documented exactly where they went and when, compiling a real-time, minute-by-minute, day-by-day, snapshot of what they did. The designers voluntarily let us in on their activities  – picking up a fabric, meeting with a manufacturer, grabbing a cup of coffee — by “checking-in” to Foursquare, a social media application that allows users to identify precisely where they are and what they are doing. To gauge the economic importance of the Garment District to the broader region, we studied the work lives of designers with offices in the district and those with addresses in New Jersey and the other boroughs. A majority of our sample worked outside the Garment District  [Ed Note: a particularly important factor to consider when looking at the many trips these individuals made *to* the Garment District in this two week period.]


It turned out that the benefits of the district’s agglomeration economies were not confined to eight blocks in Manhattan, but spread evenly across the region. Having an office in the Garment District was not as important as the existence of the area itself.  Seventy-seven percent of all trips the designers made were to the Garment District, and 80% of the businesses they visited were located there. Not only that, regardless of where the designers’ offices were located, they all similarly interacted with manufacturers, wholesalers and suppliers, spending almost the same amount of time with them.  The difference between Garment District-based designers and outsiders was a mere 10 minutes.

But what the designers actually did from 10 am to 6 pm (the hours most kept) revealed no set patterns. When we studied the timing of their trips to manufacturers, wholesalers or suppliers, we found no meaningful pattern, regardless of the size of the firm.  Every day was a new day.

Herein may lie the magic – what Marshall said was “in the air”– of economic clusters and their importance to cities. All designers need the same basic materials and labor to make a dress. But how they individually pursue and use those resources — and how they respond to the changing demands of realizing their conceptions — is a key component of their creative process. The Garment District’s agglomeration economies foster the freedom necessary for creativity to thrive, which is part and parcel of how great dresses are made in the first place. What we think is raw creativity – the electric energy of Marc Jacobs and Anna Sui or the exciting parties reported in the media – is quite a practical matter.

The great urbanist Jane Jacobs once remarked that “diversity is natural to big cities.”  Her point was that the intermingling of different firms and industries that work together to produce things and ideas is a central feature of an urban economy and accounts for its ongoing vibrancy.  And our study shows that this sharing is much wider geographically than previously thought.

Creativity and its economic impact – whether producing a wrap dress or a semiconductor – is rarely an act of genius in isolation. It instead is the interworkings and interventions of a highly efficient and effective cluster of firms and those who work for them.

This phenomenon unfolds in particular places, and those special places must be preserved if we want to keep our cities bright and our industries innovative. Let that be a lesson as we watch the runways and the flashing lights.

To see the actual travel routes and stops, watch the video at the end of the article at this link:

NYC Garment Center Business Cluster








 [This is the Fourth in a series on Small Business in America]
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