Who is a local?

There seems to be an age old debate on who exactly is a local. If you look up 'local' in the dictionary you will find something like this: of or in a certain place, especially the place one lives in. To me, a local is someone who lives in the community, possibly has a job locally, who may have children who attend local schools, participate in local sports/clubs etc, someone who supports the community by purchasing goods and services locally, perhaps you even volunteer for a local charity.

Why is it then, that most "locals" look unfavourably upon new residents? It seems that in order to be a local, one must have lived in the area for at least two decades. People who move to a new community should definately be given local status as they have chosen to move to the area.

But when it comes to jobs, should this be the case? The reason this has been on my mind lately is I saw by chance a job advertised on Rio Tinto's web site, a job vacancy which clearly stated that only locals could apply, however, if you were prepared to uproot you family and move to the area, you would then be eligible to apply (tough luck if you don't get the job!).

There is so much emphasis of late about spending money locally to keep business enterprise alive and small communities must do whatever they can to encourage people to the area. But if this then becomes the norm, what happens to the locals who already live in the community? Is it fair on them to be passed over for jobs when they are integrated into the community?

To be fair to Rio Tinto, trying to encourage people to a small community is a difficult undertaking, especially when the cost of living in that area is out of this world. If they do manage to encourage more people to the area, what effect will that have on the locals? Will resentment fester and breed? Or will everyone learn to live in harmony? It will be interesting to see what develops over the next few years.