In this case, old solutions will not solve new problems. The framework currently in place worked rather well for the way the United States did business prior to 1998, but it offers no satisfactory solution to doing business in this new age. The age of electronic mail and electronic commerce treats fundamental components of our thinking in different ways. City limits and county lines mean virtually nothing. State lines and national borders are of diminishing significance.
Distance is measured in minutes rather than miles.
Until recently, a city might be defined as the area in which one would find home, work, school, church, shops, entertainment and recreation. It is becoming more and more likely that the location for some, if not most, of those parts of life are in different cities, sometimes in different states and occasionally in different countries. The lines of city, county and state have become blurred if not erased. Those same lines are therefore no longer as likely to contain complete problems or complete solutions. Commerce Commerce has long been an issue with important local implications and it will continue to be so.