Ithaca Local Economy Lab -- Radical Experiments in Business and Community

Ithaca Local Economy Lab Real experiments in 'radical' alternative economics — from one unusually interesting small city

Ithaca, NY once printed its own money. Ithaca HOURS circulated for decades, valuing a plumber's hour the same as a professor's, keeping millions of dollars of spending power inside the community. It was radical. It worked. And it was just the beginning.

Today, a worker cooperative runs one of the best-loved coffee shops in town. A shared commercial kitchen has made food entrepreneurship accessible to people who couldn't otherwise afford the infrastructure. A fiber cooperative is doing the slow, deliberate work of rebuilding a regional textile economy from sheep to shelf. An antique mall operates as a genuine community enterprise. A local business runs on gifting — and is still standing.

Ithaca Local Economy Lab documents these experiments across regenerative, circular, solidarity, and gifting economies.