Where are the small businesses?

Editor,
    As your front-page story in your latest publication states, Reunion has been  abuzz with the erection of the new King Soopers being built on the corner of Chambers and 104th Avenue.
    No doubt, it will be nice to have the convenience of a  grocery store at our doorsteps, yet I can’t help but feel like our neighborhood is growing and morphing into what every other suburb looks  like—cookie cutter.
    Where are all the mom and pop businesses? The locally owned and operated  restaurants and stores?  It’s a relief that China Red, Yum Asian and 
Stellato’s Grocery & Deli are here to serve our community with neighborly  warmth and quality goods and services, but what about all the others?   
Chains, which have no roots or investment in our community, and pay their  employees (our neighbors) substandard wages, are popping up like crabgrass in  summer and diminishing the vitality of our middle class society.
    We have a stake in growing our local economy, and one of the ways to weather this recession is to support local businesses, not through big business. As Matt Stinchcomb, European Director of Etsy (a web marketplace for homegrown micro businesses) states, “a dollar spent locally circulates around 30  times, whereas a dollar spent at a big chain store circulates eight times.”
    As I watch our community grow, I can’t help but fear we’re emerging as  the poster-child of big business and selling out to large corporations. When I talk to my neighbors, we share our dreams of one day being able to walk  down the street to the local ice cream shop; to afresco dine at a family  owned café; or maybe even bike to a farmers market at Reunion Park. I hope that one day these dreams come to fruition, but we need to change our priorities first.
    In the meantime, Pete Seeger’s rendition of “Little  Boxes” plays repeatedly in my head as I drive down the street.
Jennifer Schiel
Commerce City