By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Ideally Thanksgiving should be a time for friends and family, and for reaching out to help others. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t live a hectic life. Taking a day or a long weekend to connect with the things that really matter is an important thing to do. Life will zip past you if you let it. Yet, as our televisions, mailboxes and email accounts constantly remind us, Thanksgiving also marks the official start of the holiday shopping season. Doesn’t matter what your religion is, chances are you’re about to do some serious spending. I’ll be out shopping too. So as we Somervillians hit the stores, I want to encourage everyone to spend that money locally, right here in Somerville.

I have four kids. No one needs to tell me about the convenience of online and one-stop shopping. Christmas shopping for my family is an enormous juggling act. I suspect like most families, we’re pretty happy when we get everything done. Yet it’s important to think bigger than just one day, or eight days, or whatever number of gift-giving days that’s put you in shopping mode. You live where you live 365 days a year. If you’re going to spend a chunk of money, it makes sense to invest a good portion of it in your local community.

We all like living near city squares with open storefronts and a diversity of businesses. Yet thriving business districts don’t happen by accident. That adorable or interesting or unique shop you like to walk past doesn’t stay open if you never go into it and spend some money. The holidays are a make or break season for a lot of retail establishments. Local stores don’t bombard us with offers like national chains, but this time of year is every bit as important to their bottom lines.

Shopping locally circulates your money where you live. Even if you shop at a local chain store, $43 of every $100 stays in our community. That store hires local employees and pays local taxes. If you shop at a locally owned business, the number of dollars that stay here jumps up: an estimated $68 of every $100 stays in our community because those shops use other local business services (printing, marketing) and buy more of their supplies locally. All those local profits benefit the businesses—and through taxes then benefit the community. When you shop locally you put your money to work for you. Taxes paid by thriving local retailers help pay for better schools, public safety and public works.

The stronger our local commercial economy, the easier it is on your property taxes too. Currently residential taxes constitute 74 percent of the Somerville tax base. That’s one of the big things we’re trying to change with our SomerVision community plan. We’d like to drive down what homeowners pay into the total pot by bringing in new businesses that bring new jobs and new commercial tax revenues. Some of that means bringing in new office tenants like SmartBear Software and Avigilon Corporation in Assembly Row as we have done, but it also means having thriving retail and restaurant districts throughout the city.

Since 2010 Somerville has added roughly 119 net new businesses. Ideally we want unique stores you can’t find anywhere else. We want to build on that only-in-Somerville character that makes our city squares uniquely ours. Yet this is a classic case of City Hall’s influence only extending so far. We can run storefront improvement programs to help small businesses, help new businesses learn about available locations and obtain loans, and we can create the walking and biking amenities that help put customers on our streets, but then it’s a matter of whether those potential customers put their dollars where their home is. That’s you. That’s me. That’s our neighbors.

To be clear, I’m definitely not advocating anyone rush out to spend extra money. By all means, stay within your budgets. Yet shop local first and shop local last. You’re more likely to find a one-of-a-kind gift that stands out, that makes a deeper connection. You’ll find handmade local jewelry and items you’ll never see at a chain store. The shop owners and workers also know their products better. They can help you pick out the exact right thing for that special someone.

This isn’t some new notion. Those of us who have lived in Somerville a little longer can recall a time when Davis Square had Woolworth’s, Grant’s, Parke Snow and Gorin’s. In other parts of the city we had Tello’s on Broadway, Simonelli’s Stylish Furniture and the “hot bread” sign flashing at Roma’s bakery. Used to be that you could get pretty much anything you needed in Somerville. That’s the Somerville I watched slowly fade away when I was growing up here. I want it back.

I know I keep repeating the phrase “make Somerville a great place to live, work, play and raise a family,” but the reason I do is because the Somerville I was born into was a place where you could do exactly that. When we needed something, we got it here. You didn’t need to pack up the car and go on an expedition. People worked close to where they lived and they shopped here. The in vogue phrase for that is “a sustainable local economy.” It’s nothing new and it’s something Somerville can have again.

One of the keys to it is keeping more of your money where you live. There’s a world of choices out there and that’s a good thing, but I’m just saying remember to choose Somerville too. What we spend now and where we spend it will shape our community. Somerville’s a great place to shop on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday and every other day. The more we live here, the more livable Somerville will be.