As the debate grows about Rhode Island’s social-service costs, including to help the swelling ranks of immigrants, legal and illegal, perhaps some people will start asking whether the criteria for being covered by such benefits should be similar to those, say, for determining whether a college student is eligible for a Rhode Island resident’s tuition at the University of Rhode Island.

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This past Sunday’s Boston Herald detailed, in a story by Phil Restuccia, a growing movement of consumers and local businesspeople called Local First. This national group has organized 17,000 businesses around the country into 50 groups promoting their services directly to local shoppers, appealing to geographic loyalty and a sense of community. It’s kind of the “Small Is Beautiful” movement redux, or a cousin of the New Urbanism.

Founded by Massachusetts health-club owner Laury Hammel, the movement wants to strengthen community ties by keeping locally owned businesses in, well, business and in so doing to strengthen frayed community ties in anomie-ridden America.

The movement has gained considerable traction, but given Americans’ obsession with the low prices offered by national store chains whose stuff is made by cheap labor abroad, and the comfort factor for many consumers of national brands, you have to wonder how far this movement can go — as attractive as it is to affluent and urbane people in the Northeast.

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