As we face challenging economic times, it's tempting for citizens and public officials to worry only about what happens in their own borough, township, county or legislative district. But while local governments here like to be independent politically, they aren't independent economically.

In the more than 500 municipalities in the 10-county region, on average, 87 percent of their residents work in a different municipality. In fact, at the time of the 2000 Census, there were only four municipalities in the 10-county region where the majority of residents worked at jobs in the municipality where they lived -- Pittsburgh, Indiana Borough, New Wilmington (in Lawrence County), and Waynesburg (in Greene County).

The ability of most municipalities to provide police protection, road maintenance and other public services depends on how successfully other communities are at creating and retaining jobs, since it's those jobs that provide residents with the income to pay their local taxes.

In this sense, like it or not, most communities in the region are dependent on Pittsburgh. In 136 municipalities, more residents work at jobs in Pittsburgh than in any other location, including their home municipality. And 93 percent of the municipalities in the region had at least one resident working at a job in Pittsburgh.

Although Pittsburgh is the biggest regional employment center, it's not the only one. For example, in 2000, nearly half of the people working in Findlay, home to Pittsburgh International Airport, came from outside of Allegheny County, and more than half of the workers in Cecil (Washington County), where Southpointe is located, commuted from Allegheny County. The decisions made about infrastructure, taxes, etc. in these municipalities affect job prospects for people in hundreds of other municipalities.

Is the picture any different if you talk about the 10 counties rather than the 548 municipalities?

In terms of its residential tax base, Allegheny County is the most economically self-sufficient in the region, because 92 percent of Allegheny County residents work at a job in that county. In most of the other counties in the region, fewer than two-thirds of their residents work in the county where they live. In fact, between one-fourth and one-third of the residents in Beaver, Butler, Washington and Westmoreland counties get their paycheck from an employer in Allegheny County.

If you look at it from the perspective of businesses, however, they draw their workers from a broad geographic area and, to them, government boundaries are an impediment, not an asset. Even in Allegheny County, employers depend on residents of every other county in the region to fill more than 1 out of every 5 jobs. In most of the other counties in the region, between one-fourth and one-third of the jobs are filled by workers from a different county.

What does all this mean for us, particularly with tough economic times ahead?

First, no matter where a business is, it will need to draw on workers throughout the region to fill jobs. So we need high-performing schools in every district; we need regional, not local, work force training systems; and we need transportation systems that connect our communities.

Second, it makes no sense for our communities to be competing with each other for businesses and jobs. A company that locates or expands in one community is likely to provide jobs that support the tax bases in many other municipalities, so the only real "loss" is if the business locates in another region entirely.

And finally, with limited funding for infrastructure and economic development programs, we need to pool our resources and invest in the most strategic opportunities for the region as a whole.