The New Local

(disclaimer. This blog was typed from Germany on a German keyboard. I am sorry for any errors)


I remember the first time that I was asked where I was from and got confused. It was 2004 at a conference in Koln Germany. You wouldn't think that this would be a tough question to answer, but I found that my difficulty to answer said something incredibly promising about the world we lived in. Here was the confusion. I was married, and my wife lived full time in New York. I worked for my family business called Tech Pro which was located in Summit County Ohio, so I spent part of the week there (where I rented a house) and part of the week in New York (where I rented an apartment). We employed up to 50 people in Ohio. I also was a co-owner of a new company that worked with Tech Pro in a German town called Bruggen. I spent one week out of every five there, and had taken a lot of time, and some pride in starting this with my partner Peter Day. My family business also had sales offices in 13 other countries that I visited often. For the first time in my life I truly felt like the cliched, but relevant “citizen of the world”. I loved this, as it showed that internationalism was no longer an artistic construct, or economist ideal as it was in the early 20th century, but was rather a reality of life.

Now times have again changed and we live in the most hyper globalized world in history, but with a strange reactionary tendency which seems to be at odds with the “citizen of the world” ideals which I so much cared about. We live in a Facebook and Google world, where we communicate globally. Strangely, however, there is a paradox, that we seem to be communicating about the importance of being local rather than global. This is seen in a number of places.


The first is in the buy local movement. While I see nothing wrong with buying local, and actually love the idea of supporting local businesses, the more formal movement does have the unfortunate quality of blinding many people to the value of international commerce. It is global trade, not local, which brings prices down, which makes the world more prosperous as a whole, and encourages technology. There are things that are just better when we collaborate globally, such as certain types of manufacturing, sharing of customs and work principles (think of the Toyota Lean manufacturing model which was Japanese), sharing of natural resources, macro and micro economic experimentation and much more. Even for those who support “buy local” for environmental reasons this can often be misleading as local for most of the United States is considered to be anything within 150 miles. To truck small amounts of goods this distance can often have a worse environmental impact than flying large quantities from other countries. As a solution to this, I do propose urban farming which is as hyperlocal as you can get. So you can see that I don't think everything should be removed from a tight community. In fact one of the greatest things about life now is the rapid rate of increase in urbanization which is better for everyone than rural or suburban living.


The other major place where being global has become controversial is in the recent US Presidential campaign. Talk of Bain Capital and the outsourcing of jobs has basically been a standard lie for both parties. Neither want to discuss the reality, taking instead the less substantive approach of avoiding the real issue. The reality is that we need to discuss the importance of a company's survival and when outsourcing is a good idea. We need to see when it has worked, and just as importantly when it has failed. What Romney should say, and actually Obama should agree with, is that there is not a one solution answer to where to place jobs. They should not always be local. That is a reality for a company's survival and ultimately in providing good jobs both in the United States and abroad. Both Romney and Obama know this, but it is politically incorrect to say it. What could be a politically correct and accurate follow up is that often experiments with outsourcing were not the best solution, and that companies are bringing jobs back to the United States when the conditions work out well.

This brings me back to my own identity. Where am I local to now? I live in Brooklyn, New York, and have a new business in Summit County Ohio that employees people who on average make over 50% more than the state average. That company also sells more internationally than in the United States. So to me I am a proud citizen of New York where I live and contribute by being a Dad and Professor, and to Ohio where I contribute by choosing to have a company and hire wonderful people there. I am still in my mind a “citizen of the world” though, even if that title is not en vogue. Something last night surprised me though. I have been giving TEDx talks in various places around the world. But I never considered, nor do i think TED would want, them to be considered local events in the way that only local topics, and a very small definition of local population would speak. Still there is a TEDx Akron coming up, which is in the same county where I grew up, and owned 2 businesses, including the current rapidly growing technology one. I was told by a friend when I asked about speaking at it, that she believed it was for locals. I said, rudely and defensively, that I am a local. (I did this from Germany and by e-mail by the way) I bring the coolest and best paid new jobs to the area. I use local banks, local patent lawyers, local accountants and our growing staff and I frequent local restaurants, stores and bars. We use local hotels constantly as well, because we are global. If I have to pick a place I am local to, Akron must be a contender, and certainly a place that should ask me to speak at a TEDx Akron. To be completely fair to my wonderful friend she is really great. She even worked with and advises our company (another example of us buying local) and she has helped change the landscape of the community. For me to talk about myself was as it sounds; selfish. She is nominated, rightly so, to speak at TEDx Akron. My worry however is not that I won't speak, which is absolutely fine. What worries me is that others like me, who have homes in New York or other places will not embrace my hometown (Akron) for starting businesses if they are perceived as outsiders, even by the very global TED community. I also worry that Akronites will see themselves as Akronites as a main definer of identity, which will prevent them from embracing globalization. I want everyone to eventually be citizens of the world. The world is too wonderful not to want that. This is not specific to Akron, but general to the ideas I mentioned before. We act more globally every day, but often seem to wish we were not. This is a shame, and should be acknowledged by communities and politicians, so that we can fully achieve the dreams that I had thought I had achieved for myself in 2004.