THE PURPOSE OF TRADING IS TO GET IMPORTS. The Sycamore Road "Little Schaumburg" strip is about completely built on, and businesses are looking at the Lincoln Highway southwest of the Northern Illinois campus. Starbucks is a leading indicator of a town's prospects.

DeKalb uses leakage rates, the fraction of money from DeKalb being spent elsewhere, to address the question of where the rest of a consumer's money is going if it's not being spent in the area.

"Starbucks has consistently been used across the United States as an indicator on whether a particular place has a healthy economy," [DeKalb economic development administrator Paul] Rasmussen said. "Three years ago there were no Starbucks in DeKalb. Now there are five. For a small town, that's a lot."

The two paragraphs are less than coherent. Presumably it is better for a town if there is a Starbucks or five (and therefore some consumer spending leaving town) than it is if there is no Starbucks, and the local merchants keep most of the little consumer spending that there is going on in town.

One way to keep the consumer spending in town is to have reasons for people to spend money in town.

DeKalb resident Phil Pearson likes the new business developments popping up in DeKalb, but has other hopes for a town inhabited by younger people.

"I think in a university town, you want to see something fresh, original and cutting-edge," he said. "Not something so corporate like a town dominated by chains and drive-thrus."

So experiment with such a business yourself, or be a venture capitalist to a student with such an idea.