Buying Local

I have mixed feelings about this promotion by the Chautauqua County Chamber of Commerce. On the surface, it's a great idea--shop locally, support businesses in the community (as opposed to spending your dollars in some other city--and with the popularity of internet shopping these days, some of those other cities are pretty far away), help your neighbors prosper. Awesome.

On the other hand, it comes down to the question, what exactly do you mean by LOCAL?  Geographic location, local ownership, locally produced goods and services? Naturally, the more "local" you get, the greater the benefit to the local community. The chamber's definition of local is the most broad definition, since participants include the local Wal-Mart stores.

In defense of that, these stores do employ local people and in that sense do contribute to the overall well-being of the community.  However, these stores are obviously not owned by local people and offer very little in the way of locally produced goods.

We've been lulled into complacency (like frogs in a pot of boiling water) about our gradual slide from a self-reliant, production centered society to a consumer-centered one, helplessly dependent on goods produced elsewhere and delivered to us via a long and expensive (soon to be much more expensive) supply line.  Thus overextended, very little is being done to dial us back to a more sustainable level of living.

I think it's important for the frogs who have managed to jump out of the pot to begin looking around now for local, sustainable sources of needed goods and services, and beat the stampede. Even as someone new to this community,  I'm probably not starting far behind people who have lived here for their entire lives.

By the way, the chamber's list barely scratches the surface of local.