Where does "local" start and stop?

We would bet that most of our readers don't work in the same town that they sleep in, and that they shop in another jurisdiction, too. We'd bet that their school districts sprawl all over the map and incorporate parts of other towns that some of us can't even pronounce.

So how does this work? When you're sitting on your porch in the evening, do you think of yourself as belonging to your yard? Your town? To Ulster, Orange or Sullivan Counties? Or to all of the above — and the Yankees or Mets, too?

There are webs of connection tying all our towns and districts together. Let's say you work in construction and you need to dig. Sooner rather than later, you're doing business with Pine Bush Equipment. At the other end of the scale, suppose you like to go out for dinner and then see some live theatre. The chances are you'll dine at Aroma Thyme Bistro and then catch the show at the Shadowland on Ellenville's Canal Street.

And the opportunities and problems that obsess us, too, exert influence far beyond one township or another.

The oft-discussed mushroom plant in Mamakating will draw workers from Kerhonkson and Shawangunk. A casino in Greenfield Park will not only derive its workforce from the whole tri-county region, but will provide entertainment for some in the area, and traffic nightmares for others. And then add some foreclosures to the stack sitting around in assessors' offices…

The notion that in this day and age any community can be really self-contained, or that its issues don't spill over to its neighbors, is anachronistic. We're all in this together, whether we like it or not.

Take an issue that is going to burn its way into every taxpayer's consciousness within a few short months, like the state practice of promising money to school districts and then not delivering. Can we actually trust the numbers that the state puts out? If we can't, then where is that money to come from? How will each district deal with that little problem? Can we learn from each other? That might be a good idea…

We believe that to get a good understanding of the issues that we face, it's always better to broaden the view than to narrow it down. The harder questions are usually the wider ones, and to grapple with them, it really helps to know how our neighbors just a few miles down the road are dealing with them. Now and then we might learn something really useful.

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