Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, member of the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) board of directors, and author of The Hometown Advantage: How to Defend Your Main Street Against Chain Stores and Why It M

With Election Day less than a week away, it's not surprising that Congressional mid-term elections have been dominating the news from coast to coast. However, in two communities in the West, a vote of a different kind has been making headlines: In Davis, California, and Ravalli County, Montana, voters will be heading to the polls on November 7 to determine whether their communities open their doors to big box retailers.

Ravalli County, Montana

Wendy Hudson of Nantucket Bookworks and other local business owners on Nantucket Island, off the Massachusetts coast, recently learned that an ordinance to keep chain stores out of the island's historic downtown had received the state's stamp of approval.

On Saturday, November 18, communities across the country will celebrate America Unchained! -- a national public education event sponsored by the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) that urges consumers to "unchain themselves" by shopping only at locally owned independent businesses for the entire day.

At its fall trade show, the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) began offering its members NCIBA- and San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Association-branded "informational coupons" that highlight the benefits of shopping locally.

Rainy Day Books of Fairway, Kansas, launched an e-mail campaign this week that seeks to keep a developer from bringing a Borders Books & Music to the new Gateway development in nearby Mission. A day after the e-mail went out, the developer, The Cameron Group of East Syracuse, New York, acknowledged it had previously talked with Borders about the development, but denied it has any deal to bring the chain bookstore to its new mix-use development.

This week, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) announced the launch of its Big Box Tool Kit, a new online resource for citizens groups working to stop sprawling big-box development, change their community's land use and economic development policies, and expand locally owned businesses.

The past few years have seen an increase in the number of communities whose residents and businesses have banded together to fight against proposed big box development. In California, state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-San Fernando Valley) has taken this battle one step further with two bills designed to assist local governments in their battles to keep big box retailers, such as Wal-Mart, out of their towns.