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Community Economics

How places regenerate or die — local economic multipliers, cooperative models, food systems, housing policy, zoning, and civic infrastructure. The economics they never teach: the economics of place.

14 Units

30-45 minutes per unit

What You Will Learn

Local Economic Systems

Multiplier effects, economic leakage, import substitution — why some communities build wealth and others lose it.

Housing, Food & Zoning

How obscure land-use rules determine housing costs, walkability, food access, and community character.

Civic Infrastructure

School boards, water districts, planning commissions — where local power actually lives, and how to use it.

All Units

The Extractive vs. Regenerative Economy

Two models for how communities create value — extraction versus regeneration — examined through real case studies of places that thrived and places that were hollowed out.

•Distinguish between extractive and regenerative economic models using concrete examples
•Analyze how corporate ownership structure affects local wealth retention
•Evaluate a community's economic health beyond simple GDP or employment figures

The Local Multiplier Effect

Why a dollar spent at a locally owned business circulates through the community multiple times before leaving, while a dollar at a chain exits almost immediately — and what this means for local economic health.

•Explain the local multiplier effect and calculate simple multiplier estimates
•Distinguish between economic leakage and recirculation, with real examples
•Analyze import substitution as a community economic development strategy

How Zoning Shapes Everything

Single-family zoning, parking minimums, setback requirements, and mixed-use development — how obscure land-use rules determine housing costs, walkability, business viability, and community character.

•Identify the major types of zoning and their economic effects on housing supply, affordability, and business viability
•Analyze how parking minimums and setback requirements raise costs and reduce walkability
•Evaluate mixed-use development as an alternative economic model for community wealth building

Food Systems and Food Deserts

Farm-to-table economics, food cooperatives, community-supported agriculture, urban farming, and why some neighborhoods have farmers markets while others have dollar stores.

•Trace the economic journey of food from farm to consumer and identify where value is captured
•Analyze food deserts as an economic phenomenon, not just a nutritional one
•Evaluate local food system models — CSAs, food co-ops, urban farms — as community wealth strategies

Housing as Infrastructure

Why housing is both shelter and the largest financial asset most families own — gentrification, displacement, community land trusts, and the tension between affordability and investment.

•Explain housing's dual role as shelter and investment asset and analyze tensions between these functions
•Define gentrification and displacement with precision, distinguishing causes from symptoms
•Evaluate community land trusts and other decommodification models as alternatives to market-rate housing

Cooperative Economics

Worker cooperatives, credit unions, mutual aid societies, and community development financial institutions — ownership structures that keep wealth local and distribute economic power differently than conventional corporations.

•Distinguish between cooperative ownership models and conventional corporate structures
•Analyze how credit unions and CDFIs provide financial access where conventional banks do not
•Evaluate the Mondragon cooperative model as a scaled example of regenerative economics

The Civic Infrastructure You Don't See

School boards, water districts, planning commissions, and county budgets — where local power actually lives, and why 90% of these seats run uncontested.

•Identify the major institutions of local government and the decisions each controls
•Analyze how low voter turnout and uncontested elections affect local policy outcomes
•Evaluate how civic engagement at the local level translates into economic outcomes for communities

Community Organizing 101

Power analysis, stakeholder mapping, coalition building, and campaign strategy — how ordinary people change local policy, with historical and contemporary case studies.

•Define power in the context of community organizing and distinguish between organized money and organized people
•Apply stakeholder mapping and power analysis to a real local issue
•Analyze the structure of successful community campaigns using historical and contemporary examples

Public Goods and the Commons

Parks, libraries, roads, broadband, and clean air — what markets can't provide, what happens when public goods are privatized, and the tragedy of the commons revisited.

•Define public goods using the non-excludable and non-rival framework, with real examples
•Explain the tragedy of the commons and evaluate Elinor Ostrom's research on commons governance
•Analyze specific cases of privatization — water, broadband, prisons — using economic and equity criteria

Main Street vs. Wall Street

How the financialization of local business — private equity rollups, franchise extraction, absentee landlords — hollows out communities, and the buy-local, invest-local counter-movement.

•Define financialization and explain how it has transformed local business ownership over the past 40 years
•Analyze the mechanics of private equity rollups and their effects on wages, quality, and community
•Evaluate local investment tools — revenue sharing, community bonds, local stock exchanges — as alternatives to Wall Street capital

Brain Drain and Talent Retention

Why young people leave small towns and rural communities — and the economic strategies that reverse it: anchor institutions, place-based scholarships, remote work infrastructure, and entrepreneurship ecosystems.

•Analyze the economic causes and consequences of brain drain in rural and small-town communities
•Evaluate specific strategies for talent retention including place-based scholarships, anchor institution development, and remote work infrastructure
•Assess the role of entrepreneurship ecosystems in creating local economic opportunity for young people

Environmental Justice as Economic Justice

Who lives near the refinery, who drinks clean water, and why — the geographic distribution of environmental costs and how it maps to race and class.

•Define environmental justice and document the empirical relationship between environmental hazards and race/income
•Analyze the economic mechanisms through which environmental costs are distributed unequally
•Evaluate the environmental justice movement's strategies for redistributing environmental costs more fairly

Measuring What Matters

GDP vs. Genuine Progress Indicator, Bhutan's Gross National Happiness, community health metrics, and the challenge of measuring whether a place is actually getting better.

•Critique GDP as a measure of community well-being and identify what it counts and what it ignores
•Explain alternative metrics — GPI, GNH, community health indexes — and their advantages and limitations
•Design a basic community well-being index using locally relevant indicators

Building the Place You Want to Live

Participatory budgeting, community visioning, asset mapping, and the proposition that civic engagement is not a duty but a design activity.

•Define participatory budgeting and analyze its effects on civic engagement and public spending outcomes
•Apply asset-based community development (ABCD) methodology to identify community strengths
•Design a community vision project that integrates economic, civic, and social dimensions

Community Economics. Grades 11-12 elective. 0.5 credit.