Do We Shop Locally?

I woke up today filled with questions! Think for a moment where we tend to shop. Do we know if we tend to shop local, regional, national or international? Do we know where the things we buy come from? How they arrive in our hands? Are we aware that as an active member of economics 101 the “where and how” we shop shapes the world in which we live? Is it possible that we have at least some control of our local destiny?

For years we have been carrying on a national dialog about the effects of the “Global Economy!” We engage in populist speak and toss about references to NAFTA, the WTO and the IMF, etc. We carry on like Jekyll & Hyde with our discomfort over how another local factory has moved to China or the corner clothing boutique just closed without giving us proper notice. On the one hand, we feel a bit unsettled about it. On the other hand, we push it a little deeper. We push it past the horizon of our immediate sense of urgency as though we need to accept the inevitable.

What happens, years from now, when we look back? Will we see the local community that attracted us to move away from more familiar environs or the once reviled hometown? Is it possible that the local shops we blindly drive by today will become impossible to avoid as we can’t help but notice how many are gone? What if, for the next few days, we just count the number of locally, owned and operated shops as we drive through our daily grind? If we merely count them today, will we be able to count on them being there tomorrow?