Building Local Power

Building Local Power


Latest Episodes

Staying Local at the Statehouse with Tristan Rader
February 06, 2025

This episode is the first in our new season of Building Local Power, The New Class, where we are talking to interesting changemakers among the state and local politicians newly elected in November 2024. Our first guest is Tristan Rader, representing Distr

How Structural Racism Fuels American Monopolies
January 23, 2025

The inspiration for this season of Building Local Power is ILSR'sPower Play report, written by ILSR senior editor and researcher Susan Holmberg. Sue joins us today for a wide-ranging and candid conversation about the report and its main finding: that mon

“The Bad Target”: The Rise of Consumer Redlining
January 09, 2025

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 billions of calculations. Multiply that by millions of users,

A Rebalancing Act: How We Restore Local Power in 2025
December 26, 2024

ILSR co-executive directors Stacy Mitchell and John Farrell join Reggie Rucker to discuss the year in ILSR and the issues we care about. What did the media get wrong about the economy in the lead-up to the election? How can voter frustration turn into pos

The Environmental Inequity of AI
December 12, 2024

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 billions of calculations. Multiply that by millions of users,

Pizza, DMs, and Solidarity: Filming the Amazon Labor Fight
November 27, 2024

In March, 2020, Amazon warehouse worker Chris Smalls led a walkout protesting a lack of Covid-19 safety measures at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island. He was fired two hours later. In the following days, a leaked memo revealed that the Amazon c-suite (i

Amazon, Labor, and Race
November 14, 2024

For many years, Reverend Ryan Brown has been a picker at Amazon's RDU1 warehouse outside of Raleigh, NC. In 2020, he was asked to work in a part of the warehouse he knew was a dangerous COVID hot spot. He refused, calling his decision to do so a "Rosa Par

Bookstores and Local Power with BLP’s New Host, Danny Caine
October 31, 2024

The first bookstore Danny Caine fell in love with was a suburban Cleveland outpost of a mega-chain. Since then, he has not only fallen in love with independent bookstores and other local businesses but has also become a widely known advocate against Amazo

The Will and the Way to Revive ‘the Mecca’
October 18, 2024

The destruction of Dorr Street in Toledo, Ohio isnt just a story of physical destruction; it's about the dismantling of crucial social infrastructure that once allowed residents to communicate, organize, and thrive. In the final episode of our Toledo s

Mending Broken Promises on Dorr Street
October 04, 2024

Toledos 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 discriminatory practices that prioritized urban expressways over v