Create new space for employment

TORONTO -- Where are the jobs? That's a question you can hear over coffee from one end of Canada to the other. We look at our children and wonder where they'll work. We look at those of us forced into early retirement because of closures and layoffs and wonder the same for ourselves.

A little creativity is all that's required, and we'll have lots of work for everyone.

It's nice to have major employers: They're why town and city councils constantly vote to provide incentives to attract them. The trouble is that major employers don't have the same commitment to the community and its future as local employers. So how do we make more local opportunities?

Start thinking about how to do things in common.

One idea is to share the risk when it comes to space. New ventures are constantly stretched financially. Often an idea can't go ahead because there isn't a small enough space available to make it work. The result? Nothing happens.

Toronto's Blue Banana market, part of Kensington Market, brings small merchants together under one (larger) roof. Almost all of them would not be viable businesses if they each had to find and rent their own business premises. (Most don't need a standard storefront anyway: they'd have to commit to more than they need just to get something.)

By sharing space, each gets a footprint that's "right-sized" for them. The button vendor -- who makes some buttons and buys a small inventory of others -- needs all of 100 square feet to have a viable business; the postcard vendor, 200 square feet. Some of the merchants handling clothing or artwork take more space, almost store-sized.

They also get a lot of cross-traffic. Once you're in the Blue Banana, the tendency is to wander around a bit: Five more steps usually give you something different to look at. Most people who buy once they're inside buy from more than one vendor.

Some vendors have food service: there's a coffee bar, a little sandwich place. That's another part of the mix that keeps people coming in. (The food and drink are placed up by the entrance, to entice people on the sidewalk to come in -- and to keep the rest of the space clean.) The whole thing becomes a permanent marketplace.

All it takes is one old building of a reasonable size. Just as the startup community uses shared space to provide early-stage offices -- renting as little as a desk -- this allows people to create their own jobs by making things of use to others in their community, or selling goods that are a passion for them, all at low risk.

The owner of the facility (which could be a co-operative, a shared facility that might finance the initial creation by selling small bonds that pay back out of the rental income or by using a crowd-funding resource such as Indiegogo or Kickstarter, or working with a credit union) has much lower risk. It's easier to turn over a failed venture's space than it is to redecorate a storefront, and it's highly unlikely most ventures will end simultaneously, meaning such a facility is more likely to last where individual efforts might fail.

Some of the vendors at Blue Banana do light manufacturing work (wrought-iron work or woodwork) to order. Their retail space simply exposes their work to others so they can accept orders. Garages, outbuildings or industrial space is used to do the actual construction. A shared space, therefore, doesn't have to be just traditional retail in nature.

Some participants may graduate to full storefronts of their own, helping to revitalize the town centre. Others may never do so, but a vibrant place to go helps others see the value of locating in town, not on the outskirts. Communities growing this way attract more ideas from more sources, thus diversifying their economy and insulating themselves against a sudden move by a major employer they depend on.

The takeaway for our communities is to think differently about economic development. Remember New York City: Every three or four blocks, the same pattern of small shops repeats itself, because each serves a "village" of a few blocks. These ventures don't have to be extraordinary or depend on radical ideas. We all need basic services alongside the creative ideas.

Jobs? They're ours for the making. Let's start creating the space for work to grow.

Bruce Stewart is a Toronto-based management consultant.

--Troy Media

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 18, 2012 B9