Salt Lake City will join scores of other cities throughout the nation this weekend when Local First Utah sponsors Buy Local First Week Nov. 24 through Dec. 1. The campaign showcases the importance and impact of locally owned businesses during the busiest retail season of the year.

Without succumbing to the tempting dichotomies of extolling all good virtues for local businesses and the pernicious effects of big box retailers, I believe the Buy Local First Week campaign is a good first step in giving us the opportunity to reconceptualize this bacchanalia of consumerism into a benefit for our local economy.

Some of the most radical attempts to rebuff the avalanche of consumerism that awaits us even before we have fully digested our Thanksgiving meal have been manifested in futile campaigns such as a Buy Nothing Day. Good luck to anybody who can meet the challenge during a holiday season that exhorts us to ever-more-difficult-to-manage levels of debt.

However, the Buy Local First campaign at the start of another holiday rush of retailing is a good way to raise consumer consciousness about what it means to have a viable, thriving community of locally-owned businesses and to consider some important questions such as just exactly to where does all that money that we spend go and where should it go? Also, how should communities make “local first” a realistic, pragmatic goal for their purposes? Often, these discussions involve a great deal of misinformation and misdirected perceptions on the part of consumers as well as some unnecessarily exuberant hyperbole on the part of “local first” advocates.

And, this holiday season — where a barrel of oil is approaching $100, gas prices will likely climb further, shipping costs are rising, and the dollar’s value is struggling to compete against other currency rates — might be a good time to see how consumers can spend as much as possible at local merchants and to see first hand how money spent at a locally-owned business is fueled back into the community.

I’ve always believed that one of the strongest cases for a “local first” philosophy is that it empowers the local citizenry to be engaged in a community’s obligation for accountability. Local First, when conceptualized appropriately, is an excellent way to ensure that local businesses strive to be good corporate and social citizens – providing outstanding product and service, treating their workforce well, and ensuring the best business practices in transactions with their customers.

The holiday season campaign then is an excellent pretext for making and supporting a thriving, reliable local economy throughout the year. Also, advocates such as Michael Shuman, a member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies who has written extensively on the benefits of small business, make a strong case about the issue of tax breaks, government subsidies and public incentives which favor large corporate entities but also truly displace the small business owner with unfair burdens. In his well-known publicized book titled in short The Small-Mart Revolution, Shuman writes, “the playing field is tilted like a double black diamond ski slope against locally-owned business.”

In Salt Lake City, the stereotypes of local business owners as nostalgic throwbacks to a simpler, mom-and-pop age are wrong. Increasingly, the city features sophisticated, innovative entrepreneurs who are bringing new products and services to the marketplace with a long-term eye toward the forthcoming generations of millennial consumers (those who reached the age of 18 in 2000 and beyond) whose social and cultural experiences and exposures are unprecedentedly wide in their diversity. One of the most significant developments is that these local business owners have helped construct networks with other local business owners, farmers, manufacturers, and service providers throughout the world who believe strongly in the ideals of sustainability, responsible growth, and exceptional quality.

Increasingly, the city features local business owners with offerings that are available, at best, in only a handful of cities – Berkeley, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, or New York City. And, the prospects continue to flourish, especially in the blossoming Marmalade district on the northwest side of the city where new restaurants, shops, and bars – many with a distinctly local flair – are planning to open, beginning in 2008.

I repeat the following from an August 2007 post: As a downtown resident, I definitely take pride in some of the excellent local businesses near my apartment. I enjoy first-rate coffee, tea, and gelato at Caffe d’bolla or a casual Italian dinner at the Stoneground restaurant on 400 South. I frequently visit the English Garden in the Salt Lake City Library to purchase truly fresh flowers, unusual plants, and hard-to-find home accessories. For books, I can count on Sam Weller’s or Ken Sanders Rare Books. My favorite stomping grounds for a meal include Takashi’s for sushi and the Atlantic Café on Main Street for European cuisine. And, the must-do local list should include visits to Caputo’s and Aquarius Fish near 300 South and 300 West, across from Pioneer Park.

And, Local First Utah is focusing this year’s holiday campaign on the city’s west side including Red Iguana Restaurant, the newly reopened Diamond Lil’s, Campos Market, Panaderia Flores Bakery, Marine Products, CG Sparks, and Frank Granato Importing.

Local First Utah, indeed, is flourishing. Established in 2005, the group has more than 1,300 members and that number is expected to double within the next couple of years, according to Alison Einerson, executive director.