But good things happened, too. In 2025, we saw seven new municipal broadband networks across the country that were lit up for service. As is usual, it was a mixture of partnerships, business models, ...

Join the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) on Friday, February 13th, 2026 for a virtual briefing on Amazon’s growing capture of your local public dollars — and what you can do about it. ILSR’s ...

AI technology and large language models are growing in popularity. Also growing is the technology’s detrimental effect on the environment. Each query into ChatGPT, to use one example, requires ...

Chain dollar stores are inundating America’s communities. In both small towns and urban neighborhoods, they are edging out locally owned businesses, freezing out entrepreneurs, and shifting profits ...

New York is facing an affordability crisis rooted in a deeper problem: too many essential systems are controlled by distant corporations. This has left residents with high grocery and energy costs, ...

One way to build local power is to catalyze change directly in your community. Another, equally important method is to catalyze the catalysts. To really make change and build sustainable local ...

You’d think a company with as many resources, employees, and facilities as AT&T or Comcast would have good customer service. Surely, with all the billions of dollars flowing through these businesses, ...

ILSR has conducted a sweeping investigation that reveals Amazon has quietly become a major force in how cities, counties, and school districts purchase basic supplies — and that its tightening grip is ...

It’s not easy to buy groceries if you live on the north side of Tulsa, Okla. This predominantly African American part of the city sprawls for miles and yet does not have a single, full-service grocery ...

Ron Knox was a successful reporter covering antitrust and antimonopoly issues until he couldn’t take it any more. His growing passion for the fight against corporate power didn’t match a reporter’s ...

Toledo’s Dorr Street bears the deep scars of federal policies that stripped away Black economic power and prosperity. Once a thriving center of Black business, Dorr Street was decimated by ...

Click on image to download the fact sheet. As lawmakers have grown increasingly serious about addressing Amazon’s harms, Amazon has sought to portray itself as beneficial to independent small ...