As Fuel Prices Rise, Opportunities for a Localized Economy Increase

BBC blogger Justin Web has an interesting take on the fuel crisis that has implications for local entrepreneurship

A thoughtful piece in the Observer newspaper asks whether the real impact of the fuel crisis is that "in effect, America is becoming larger again".

This is the key point [quoting the Observer]:

"That will lead to a more localised economy. To many environmentalists that is a blessing, not a curse. They point out that cheap fuel for industrial transport has meant the average packaged salad has travelled 1,500 miles before it gets to a supermarket shelf.

"'Distance is now an enemy,' said Professor Bill McKibben, author of the 1989 climate-change classic The End of Nature. 'There's no question that the days of thoughtless driving are done.'

"The worst hit parts of the US are not yet the suburbs or the freeways of southern California, but the small towns that dot the Great Plains, Appalachia and the rural Deep South. Even more than the Inland Empire, people in these isolated and poor areas are reliant on cheap petrol and much less able to afford the new prices at the pump. Stories abound of agricultural workers unable to afford to get to the fields and of rural businesses going bust. "

So what does this mean for our local entrepreneurs? Will Americans start shopping locally, buying local produce, eating locally, vacationing locally? Isn’t this an opportunity for entrepreneurship?