Communities must work with “Sponge Cities”.
Local businesses need to be very sensitive to the activities of “sponge cities” and bigger towns. Bigger communities draw community customers away. Larger cities with more variety and superior customer pulling power are a real threat. Learn more about competing with the big guys.
For towns and villages to thrive, they must mix and be very sensitive to people’s problems, frustrations, wants, and needs. An imbalance in the business community can quickly turn customers away. In addition, it intensifies the competition when a particular segment is unbalanced with the size of the community. For example, too many restaurants exceed the needs of the community, visitors, and tourists.
Most businesses understand the “in-person” customer experience as a differentiator. However, in a digital world, replicating the same level of personalisation and attentiveness has been difficult for many retailers.
Digital technology has shifted purchasing power to consumers, who now have instant access to information and other global businesses selling the same product or service at their fingertips.
Some communities have been lucky to have a robust retail environment. Compared to other areas, they have enlightened community leaders and landlords. People can protect key businesses by supporting them and welcoming diverse companies to make up the right mix.
Smaller communities and villages will always struggle with healthcare and social services. However, finding ways and means to encourage people in these communities to ‘shop locally’ is a matter of finding ways and means. Unfortunately, most people are unaware of what shopping locally means in the long term. A few dollars saved today can never make up for a community’s demise.
Businesses have proven resilient in times of adversity. However, no community wants a situation in which its companies and non-profit organisations struggle with high input costs, declining profitability, and declining demand and output.
Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to economic fluctuations and new customer expectations. Consequently, uncertainty about their prospects can inhibit their investment expectations and willingness.
As businesses look back on their performance and gather insights from their respective industries, it is difficult to ignore the significant increase in uncertainty and the additional impact of “Sponge Cities” that affect them.
Quotable Quotes
“Know your town or village. Why not take a walk with a few friends down all the critical streets in your town, making notes and taking photos of the good, the bad and the ugly, then call a meeting or two.”? Peter Sergeant
“No leader will emerge to stop our communities and politics from declining. The only way to fix what’s broken is from the bottom up”. Peter Sergeant