There’s been a lot of talk about globalization, the global economy, and New York’s place in it in recent years. In fact, the very words "globalization" and "global economy" are used so much by so many different types of people promoting so many different agendas, it’s easy to get confused by what it all means.

When social scientists, anthropologists, economists, and sociologists, talk about globalization, they mean something pretty specific. Globalization refers to a complex system of economic and social relations that stretch across differing societies. In a technical sense, it really isn’t anything new. The Bronze Age societies of the eastern Mediterranean Sea are often understood as a "global system" comprising great empires like the Hittites, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, as well as some small players like the Canaanite city states of Megiddo and Jerusalem (before the Israelites took the city in the Iron Age). The global system we talk about today is of course much larger: it comprises nearly the entire globe and contains nearly the entire population. But note: there are still some places that are effectively not yet part of the system.

Today’s global economy has been the subject of intense research. According to Saskia Sassen, one of the top researchers in the field, the global economy is centered on a number of "global cities" that are home to much of the financial capital required to produce or sell anything in the world. The biggest global cities are New York, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and some other cities that might immediately pop into your mind when someone says "money," but some smaller cities like Boston and Amsterdam make the cut as well. These cities are home to the large corporations and banks that often finance the factories and shopping malls so important to the functioning of the global economy. Of course, these conglomerates also take a pretty big cut of the profits, too, and this finances the next round of investment. The existence of a global economic system doesn’t mean that here and there a small town doesn’t do well _ think of Bentonville, Ark. _ but rather that money most often finds its way back to the cities.

Needless to say, New York City is booming.

In fact, New York City hit its largest population ever recorded in the 2000 census: over eight million people live there now.

And 135,000 more people live there than in 2000! And the suburbs are booming as well.

So, as there are more people than places to house them downstate, they necessarily look upstate. Two years ago, the Census Bureau made official what people already knew: they officially classified Kingston and Ulster County as part of the New York Metropolitan Area. (Actually, something called a Consolidated Statistical Area, but that’s semantics).

Sullivan County, on the other side of Delaware County, has added over 15,000 residents just since 1990; while Otsego County added only about a thousand. In contrast, the rest of upstate _ those areas not fortunate enough to be in close proximity to the city _ has been suffering.

Only two upstate metropolitan areas _ Albany and Rochester _ gained population during the 1990s, and in both cases, the growth rate was anemic.

To the north, the story was worse.

The Utica metropolitan area lost almost 20,000 residents; while Syracuse and Binghamton both lost about 10,000 residents.

Overall, if growth is what you want, it’s better to be near New York than away from it.

Here in central New York, we are only a few hours from the queen city of the global economy _ New York City.

The founding of New York as a Dutch and then British colony was an expansion of the global system centered in Europe, but the construction of the Erie Canal and the subsequent additions to this transportation system _ the railroads and even the Thruway _ cemented New York’s place at the top of the pyramid.

One hundred years ago, upstate farms grew the food used to feed the city and upstate factories provided many of the manufactured goods that allowed New York to do what it does best: trade. Technological innovation was found here as well, from the coal steam factories of the 1840s to the electricity of the turn of the century.

Upstate cities like Utica, Rochester, and Schenectady were the high tech centers of the day! New York City was at the core of a system that benefited much of the state: factories in the Mohawk Valley got access to global markets and Otsego County farms received top dollar for their produce, but it would not last forever.

The global economy today has expanded to include much of the world, and with it, global cities can buy their wares from any number of other regions eager to sell to the global market. You can buy, and you probably do buy whether you realize it or not, beef from Central America, fruit from California, and cheese from Wisconsin.

In your roles as consumers, you benefit greatly from this system. Who doesn’t like a Florida orange from time to time?

But the inexpensive fruit from California, the cheese from Wisconsin, and the beef from Guatemala also competes with local farmers just as Chinese television makers undercut American television makers.

Actually, for the most part, America does not make televisions anymore, but now you can by a small flat screen for less.

So where does this leave central New York?

There are vast tracts of open land in the Mohawk Valley waiting for a factory that won’t come until Americans are willing to work for a dollar an hour again _ well below minimum wage.

Grain farming might pick up when the oil runs out, but it gets easier and cheaper every year to buy our food from low wage countries, and that is exactly what many food manufacturers are doing. Here in Cooperstown the alternative has been on display for 150 years: serving tourists.

It all started with Europeans traveling to the wilds of the Otsego countryside in search of James Fenimore Cooper’s grave.

At the turn of the century, the Mills Commission set the stage for today’s tourism economy by deciding that baseball was invented here, but you’d have to believe that the West Point man Abner Doubleday was playing with a five year old. (Abner Graves, whose sole testimony secured Cooperstown’s present economy, was born in Ballston Spa in 1834, 15 years after Abner Doubleday and just five years before the "game").

Nevertheless, Cooperstown is a cultural mecca for any baseball fan, and Cooperstown does baseball well. Tourism has in recent years spread beyond the village limits, and the area’s niche in the global economy is one that many _ even most _ upstate communities today try to emulate.

Drive around the region and look at the spruced up Main Streets, the blossoming of Halls of Fame celebrating everything from boxing to soccer to horses, and the antique marts.

But without a 150-year-old tradition of tourism, many of these places remain imitators _ some of whom are more skilled than others.

Many places would love Cooperstown’s position in the global economy, but don’t treat Cooperstown as just a passive recipient of global forces. Local trends have affected and continue to affect the region today.

{"CC Letts"/}The impact of the automobile

{"CC Body Text"/}Believe it or not, you can’t blame globalization for all the problems; nor can you credit it with all the success.

Much of what is seen in the local area today is not the result of globalization, but rather the march of what people once called "progress."

If you want to understand the area today, you need to look to the area of years ago, and you really need to take a good look at the impact of the car.

Many people love cars, and not just for the looks. The car allows people to have good jobs in separate cities and still meet at home for dinner. It allows them to spend a day at the mall or in the woods or even at the ocean.

The car is, for many families, such a positive force in their individual lives that it is difficult to see it as anything else. But let’s go back a few decades.

The story is a familiar one in any city. Right after World War II, federal mortgage policies made it easier to buy a house, and one result was that a whole generation of people moved out to the suburbs.

The Levitt Brothers created a whole new concept by producing homes quickly in the potato fields of Long Island _ Levittown now has over 60,000 people!

Cute little Cape Cods and ranches with brick trim and a place for a tree in the front yard enticed millions out of the cities. Even upstate, cities watched their populations flee to places like New Hartford, Colonie, and Vestal.

These car-driving suburbanites got tired of looking for parking spaces downtown and shopped at suburban stores with vast parking lots instead. Soon, industry followed and the cities faced a serious decline. What’s curious is that it wasn’t just the cities that started losing to the suburbs.

As late as the 1960s, towns big and small had healthy little downtowns that served the needs of their own communities. In Hartwick, for instance, Main Street had 22 businesses selling everything from food to the appliances needed to cook it.

Today, there’s a bank, a lawyer, and a Post Office. In fact, there isn’t even a Main Street anymore. As if to signal its demise, the county changed its name for 911 service. So what happened?

During the 1950s and 1960s, many Hartwick residents realized that there was more selection in Cooperstown, and prices were often lower as well. In economic terms, Cooperstown benefited from "economies of scale": more shoppers meant that merchants could buy in bulk and keep prices low. Many Hartwick stores responded to the loss in business by raising prices, and this drove more shoppers away.

In time, stores in Hartwick had difficulty keeping their stores looking pretty, and discerning shoppers had even more reason to go elsewhere. By the late 1970s, the local economy collapsed, forcing shoppers into Cooperstown and other towns for basic goods and services.

All the extra business helped Cooperstown merchants, and for a time it looked as if Cooperstown would always be the same.

In 1979, according to a 2003 SUNY Oneonta study, 38 percent of downtown Cooperstown businesses were retail stores oriented toward the local community, and only four percent were "baseball" stores.

By 2003, only 12 percent were general retail stores and 22 percent were "specialty baseball."

But note that Cooperstown is not "all" baseball as many people say.

What has occurred is a shift toward two economic sectors that can provide for a healthy looking downtown but are often not of great interest to locals.

The first is obvious: tourism is more important.

In 1979, a number of specialty shops catering to tourists and, at times, locals as well, were operating downtown; they comprised 14 percent of the downtown businesses.

By 2003, this percentage climbed to 20 percent. This means it’s easier to buy a cute pair of earrings than a cute pair of Levi’s. Combined with baseball shops, over 40 percent of downtown is related to tourism.

The other major trend is the increase in local services, primarily financial services and real estate, from 20 percent in 1979 to 25 percent in 2003.

Now here’s the shocker: tourism is not responsible for this. Local shoppers are.

Just as people in Hartwick and so many other communities started looking to stores in bigger places during the 1960s, so Cooperstown went afield to shop in stores like Jamesway, Ames, and more recently Wal-Mart.

And on a good day, people go to the mall _ and there is no mall here. As with numerous cities, less people live in Cooperstown anyway. In 1990, there were 2,180 people living in the village, but in 2005 there were only 1,938.

In contrast, the town of Hartwick grew from 2,045 in 1990 to 2,238 in 2005; and Middlefield grew from 2,231 to 2,244.

And where do these folks shop?

A 2001 study of Hartwick residents found that although most shopped locally for groceries, 43 percent shopped for home improvement items in Oneonta and about half left the county entirely for clothes.

When people leave the area for so many items, or increasingly shop online, downtown turns to the people who will shop there: tourists.

If what happened in most American communities big and small happens here, then the strip in Hartwick Seminary will eventually house a few more big box stores _ a drug store, discount clothing, maybe even the dreaded Wal-Mart. (They already have a commercial filmed here û why not a store?).

Some people will welcome these stores and some won’t; the stores might decide not to come at all because of the high real estate prices and relatively small market.

In any case, the trend is seen nationwide and the area is not as unique as many would like to think.

Next week: Opportunities and Challenges and How the Future Will Be Shaped

Alex Thomas is Associate Professor and Chair of the Sociology Department at SUNY Oneonta. He has written three books including "In Gotham’s Shadow: Globalization and Community Change in Central New York" and "Gilboa: New York’s Quest for Water and the Destruction of a Small Town."

Polly Smith is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Utica College and author of the forthcoming book "The Instiutional Effect." A husband and wife team, they are currently working on a new book, "Upstate Down" (with coauthor William Wilkerson) to be published in 2008. The couple is also working on a project exploring the encroachment of New York City into the Catskill Region. They are also your neighbors.