+ NPR's Marketplace reports on localism

Following up on Everybody Eats, our earlier piece on some Cincinnati farmers that are leading the local food movement comes this excellent story from NPR. It describes some entrepreneurs from my hometown of Bellingham, Washington that are creating a remarkable, local, and self-sustaining economy:

Now, if you took this neighborly business-to-business relationship across an entire town, you'd have a self-sustaining, local economy. Then imagine that model spread around the whole world, and you're glimpsing the revolutionary vision of the new "buy local" movement. It's anti-globalization on a global scale. The movement has even begun to spawn conferences with standing-room only.

Don Shaffer: Our vision is not to just have strong groups in Bellingham and Boulder, Colorado, and Madison, Wisconsin -- the places where you might imagine that this would take root -- but to go well beyond that. And we see a sustainable global economy as a network of local living economies.

Bellingham is tiny, but it's always been a hotbed of progressive thinking and lifestyles that are a little ahead of the curve. If you're ever in the Seattle area, it's worth the drive up to Bellingham to check out the community they've built.

Check out the story here.