I'm wondering whether the DCM could be placed in what is now one of the biggest eyesores in Durham: the "Durham Merchant Center" on Chapel Hill Street, between where the old co-op was and the police department. The owner of that building is now deceased and I wonder if it might be available. It's a good central location and folks would be so thankful to see something good in that space.

Hi, I've only recently heard about the DCM effort, and in fact I discovered the information online while I was researching the existence of grocery stores in Northeast Central Durham. As you probably know yourselves, there are none there except for the occasional mini-mart. Currently residents have to go completely outside their neighborhood, often by bus, to North Durham, Forest Hills, or far East Durham to get any affordable groceries. In addition to the surcharge of bus fare and the time needed for public transportation, this serves to further remove people from the streets where they might otherwise be walking and increasing safety if the stores were nearby.

Like several historic commercial districts in Durham, Old Five Points is strategizing about how it can bring retail stores back in that will serve the community's needs, attract pedestrian traffic and create a better neighborhood feel, and create much needed jobs. Several small community ventures are already located there--Bountiful Backyards and Bull City Headquarters which also houses the Durham Bike Co-op.

The location committee may have already chosen a site or have its eye on something in particular, but I hope that you will at least consider exploring the possibility of serving a nearby neighborhood as you pursue the wonderful goal of bringing fresh food closer to your own homes. To do this all you'd have to do is begin a conversation with some local leaders or Earl Phillips in the office of Community Development, who has been working to empower the leadership of NECD for several years now.

Here's my favorite quote from the articles cstalberg mentions:

"In all the discussion about failed vision, unachieved goals and reduced social motivation, the amazing thing to me is how the most basic and most important element of cooperatives is completely passed over -- member ownership. A cooperative is a cooperative not because it has a collective management structure, not because it carries a certain product line, and not even because of any particular social agenda it may have. A cooperative is a cooperative because it is owned by the people who use it."

All I want is a place to buy groceries close to home, or on the way home from work. If no one else is going to do it but these people, then let them have at it.

As a board member I appreciate the comment posted by the reader about the prevalence of unsuccessful co-ops. The articles the reader offers give us needed insight as we continue to organize Durham Central Market. Take away points I see are: the need to have products /services that aren't offered elsewhere - and be prepared that once they are, this may signal your end b/c you don't want to compete over price; communicate co-op priniciples and keep these central; it's necessary to keep growing or you will die.

Fortunately, the experience we have backing us is Cooperative Development Services which has a track record of successful co-ops. One other note, these articles were written in the 1980s when the economy was going through a recession. This bears noting as we enter our own. Thank you, reader. Email me if you will. robinarc@aol.com

I have been involved in the co-op movement for over twenty years. Starting with the contraction and eventual death of the nation's largest food cooperative, the Berkeley Co-op, I have seen one food co-op after another struggle and die. In recent years I have seen what I call a bastardized version of the food co-op emerge, one that calls itself a cooperative but is really just another natural food store in cooperative clothing. In my view these so-called 'cooperatives' have abandoned the original mission of the cooperative movement (e.g. Rochdale Principles) and while they may be economically viable, they are failures in terms of bringing about the social and economic justice which is what the cooperatives movement was supposed to be all about. Being economically viable and bringing about social and economic justice need not be mutually exclusive goals.

We have all heard the saying that if you do not learn from the past then you are doomed to repeat it. I strongly encourage the Board and steering committee of Durham Central Market to read this short series of articles about why food co-ops struggle and die and how to get it right without abandoning the principles of social and economic justice that are the foundation of the cooperatives movement.

In 2009 we have vast societal inequities with people going hungry and homeless in numbers greater than we've seen since the Great Depression. Durham has more than its share. If there ever was a time for true cooperatives to serve the people it is now.