Community Q&A: What is local?

Last week in our editorial, we asked the question “What is Local?”

Following are some our readers’ responses. Send your thoughts to editor@carrborocitizen.com
You can read the editorial on our web site.

Supporting local

I’m an economist who has been thinking about this topic for many years. To me, the important thing to remember is that when you buy a good or service, you not only receive the good, you also lend support to a (often long) chain of businesses that have been involved in getting it into your hands. Once you are comfortable with that idea, you can see that what you buy and where you buy it affect the shape of the world around you. If you want there to be a local mechanic to repair your car when it gets old, you need to take it to that mechanic for routine maintenance (like oil changes) long before it needs repairs.
That may be a good way to think about “what is local?” What do you want in your community? If you like to be surrounded by farmland, then buy at the farmers’ market. If you want a vibrant downtown, do much of your shopping there. If being able to buy a cup of coffee, a sandwich, or a nice dinner without making a special excursion matters, patronize the local restaurants. If the idea of a dependable, local handyman appeals, hire him or her the next time you have a little-too-complex repair at home–and pass the name along to your neighbors.

Go the next step by thinking farther along that supply chain. Can you buy things that are manufactured locally …or at least distributed by a nearby firm? Do the profits from the store stay in the area? How much of the labor content in what you buy is from your region? your state? your country? To only use things that are made within a 50-mile radius (or only in the U.S) is almost impossible, but if you think it through, you can make a difference.

So, maybe it’s better to think about “supporting the local” than trying to define “what is local” by remembering that you are buying a community as well as goods when you shop. I don’t get hung up on a definition of “local,” but I’ve become willing to pay a little more for a good or service in order to support the kind of community in which I want to live.

Tom Tiemann
Carrboro

Real local pork

I’ve noticed that UNC dining services as well as a few other restaurants around town often refer to Smithfield bacon and other pork products as “local.” This really burns me up. The only thing that Smithfield does locally is pollute. The CEO lives on Park Avenue, the company is owned by shareholders; the business model is putting small pork farmers out of business, thus eliminating competition.

Local is a tricky word and we do perhaps need a replacement. Local means community and relationship-driven commerce — small scale businesses held to high standards because they are identified with a person who lives amongst us and who is committed to treating employees, the earth, the community, and the consumer with care. In the values of local it is better to support a small-scale artisan ham-maker in Tennessee than to buy a North Carolina factory farmed one.

April McGreger
Carrboro