I believe that promoting small independent business is the first step to restoring the promise of America.
If done correctly a network of small businesses can create a resilient self-sustaining structure that draws people in and creates path to prosperity for a large number of people.
The political class (progressives and conservatives alike) prefer top down hierarchical structures. Progressives and Conservatives simply disgree about who should be at the top of the hierachy.
Top down hierachical structures tend to be brittle and rife of systematical faults that can tear communities apart.
Even worse, the political minds that favor big hierarchical structures to freedom have an ugly tendency to kick people down and create massive populations of poverty and dependency.
A political hierarchy, by its very nature has limited opportunity. There's only a few worthwhile slots at the top while the rest of the people are pushed down.
A distributed system of small business has unlimited potential because all of the people in the distributed network are helping each other up.
The great European powers of old (The Monarchy) had formed into a stagnant hierarchical structure.
The great promise of America was that the colonies were developing into the framework of a distributed network. This system created widespread prosperity.
The political class (progressives and conservatives alike) prefer a hierarchical structure with politicians at the very top.
I am fiercely independent and fight this tendency to hierarchies whereever I find them because I know that a distributed network is more resilient and sustainable.
So, Small Business Satrurday is one of these days that I cherish.
I believe that the first step to restoring the promise of America is to promote independent thinking and small business.
Putting my money where my mouth is, I created a collection of community directories under the brand of Community Color. This one man project developes directories for towns in the mountain west. The directories currently have 27,169 active links. I've deleted 11,945 broken links through the years.
The goal is to link to every site I can find. This includes artists, photographers, bloggers, churches, big business and especially small business.
My biggest problem is there is no local interst in this project. In twelve years of developing this program, I have not had a single person in Salt Lake City, where I live, express interest in the project (beyond salesmen who were interested in selling me a service).
Utah is under the foot of an oppressive political hierarchical structure. The Tower of Power is on the corner of Temple and State.
I thought about engaging in a link drive today. But that idea is spammy and is unlikely to result in anything.
Instead I think I will simply engage in a link-a-thon.
Contacting people and asking permission to link is tedious. So, the Link-A-Thon will be just me trolling web pages and linking to every site I can find. While no-one is interested in linking to me, I will link to them.
Here's thes starting gate. To date, I've listed 39,114 links, I've pulled 11,945 dead links leaving 27169 live links. I've made 4,658 link review pages. Here is a break down of links by community ordered by total traffic.
If there are sites you want me to consider or sites you want removed from the directory, please use the contact form.
| Link Summary by Community | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community | Categories | Links | Distinct Domains |
Page Views |
| Salt Lake Sites | 327 | 5874 | 5248 | 3876777 |
| Provo Utah | 141 | 1861 | 1558 | 1243874 |
| Denver Color | 242 | 3736 | 3309 | 898799 |
| Grand Junction | 84 | 911 | 781 | 675113 |
| Missoula Websites | 78 | 756 | 642 | 501299 |
| Park City, Utah | 71 | 940 | 840 | 442143 |
| Saint George | 71 | 697 | 555 | 345084 |
| Moab | 43 | 431 | 378 | 321292 |
| Ogden, Utah | 77 | 784 | 632 | 296170 |
| Cedar City | 43 | 326 | 269 | 268166 |
| Cheyenne, Wyoming. US | 56 | 416 | 323 | 257993 |
| Boulder Color | 84 | 1025 | 826 | 244320 |
| Colorado Springs Color | 91 | 959 | 753 | 229998 |
| Tooele | 34 | 207 | 176 | 214624 |
| Vernal, Utah. US | 35 | 211 | 182 | 214900 |
| Logan Utah | 46 | 460 | 376 | 186830 |
| Fort Collins Color | 68 | 695 | 543 | 165137 |
| Wasatch Color | 23 | 162 | 138 | 138759 |
| Durango Colorado | 36 | 395 | 355 | 124250 |
| Glenwood Springs Color | 33 | 197 | 160 | 112982 |
| Carbon County Color | 27 | 125 | 101 | 109293 |
| Pueblo Color | 37 | 209 | 141 | 70620 |
| Community Color | 9 | 48 | 45 | 50869 |
| Phoenix Color | 81 | 1002 | 791 | 49676 |
| Laramie, Wyoming | 26 | 111 | 92 | 36121 |
| Pima County | 46 | 419 | 307 | 29595 |
| Utah Color | 30 | 329 | 203 | 27256 |
| Mohave County | 18 | 92 | 64 | 21057 |
| Navajo County | 17 | 61 | 48 | 18921 |
| Coconino County | 24 | 143 | 95 | 17279 |
| Arizona Color | 21 | 192 | 154 | 16006 |
| Yavapai County | 21 | 144 | 111 | 15112 |
| Cochise County | 18 | 94 | 75 | 14960 |
| Pinal County | 22 | 112 | 80 | 14653 |
| Yuma County | 19 | 109 | 76 | 13152 |
| Gila County | 14 | 37 | 32 | 12397 |
| Apache County | 9 | 22 | 18 | 12011 |
| Colorado Color | 17 | 145 | 92 | 11307 |
| Graham County | 10 | 29 | 25 | 10521 |
| La Paz County | 9 | 25 | 21 | 10189 |
| Santa Cruz County | 11 | 34 | 27 | 9769 |
| Greenlee County | 6 | 11 | 8 | 9315 |
| Steamboat Springs Me | 6 | 10 | 9 | 570 |
Starting figures
Events Reviews Links Removed Active
Start 16,386 4,658 39,114 11,945 27,169
End
Links: 39114 27169 11945
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