This book is a collection of stories about communities that have made a significant positive impact on their local economy by using easily duplicated strategies you can do in your own town. You can: Make slight improvements to well established practices, like new business "incubators," and change their emphasis, resulting in significantly more bang for the buck. Use new digital tools to enable groups of small local business people to band together and get large customers. Make changes to traditional "gift cards" and increase local sales. Increase the amount invested in local business by area residents. Improve profitability of local companies, reduce lay-offs, and rapidly increase company size by helping companies increase the number of "worker-owners." Repurpose abandoned or underused old factory buildings by simple alterations of the property tax code to allow their use to produce food 12 months a year, locally. Stem the outflow of community dollars by producing more food and energy locally in ways that both lower costs to the consumer and create local jobs. Profitably salvage waste from landfills, sewage treatment plants, and abandon buildings. Break the local "cycle of poverty" by improving the quality of local schools, while improving the health of students and lowering crime rates."