GREATER NEW YORK. The local Fox affiliate -- that's New York, to those coming late to this epic poem I call a weblog -- showed results of an online poll that asked viewers to name their greatest concern with Mayor Bloomburg's budget decisions. 29 percent of respondents named the proposed commuter tax.

This is something that occurs to me now and then: New York City stations actually broadcast well beyond our city limits, into what's called the Tri-State Area. So it's not so weird that many Fox viewers would take a suburban view of our crisis (Just don't charge me for anything!). Nor is it weird that so many segments on the local news shows will be about something going on in other jurisdictions, nor that the weather, traffic updates, and calendar events shift focus from the City That Never Sleeps to the Towns, Villages, and Hamlets That Never Wake Up.

But the poll made clear to me something I usually only dimly acknowledge: that a lot of people outside the City have a stake in New York. We employ thousands of out-of-towners, and entertain and play host to thousands more. Whatever the civic integrity of the many smaller units that surround us, they all have an eye turned toward us. Will it be tough getting through the tunnel tomorrow morning? Will some parade or state visit impede traffic? How long's the Orchid Show running?

And this extends even to an offhand kind of empathy. Our news is to a large extent their news. They probably are more aware of the bouncer that was killed in the East Village last weekend than they would be of a bouncer killed in the next Township. We all cluck our tongues or feel badly about the trials and travails of nationally-broadcast news subjects, but once Elizabeth Smart is off the tube, Laci Peterson is on it, and here comes Michael Skakel for a repeat performance. That camera jumps from locale to locale. But New York is a fixed stage which three states, at least, take in on a daily basis.

That ought to make me feel closer to at least this nearby bloc of non-New Yorkers. But it just makes me feel further from them. We're the ones drowning in debt and intermittently occupied by rifle-toting troopers. They're living in green acres and watching us go broke from well-appointed rec rooms. And whenever we ask for a hand, we usually get the back of it. Sheldon Silver is trying to squeeze a couple billion out of the state assembly for the City, and the Governor's office calls it "outrageous." Peekskill Pataki knows where his bread is buttered.

After Giulianification and everything else, we remain the place where they'd never want to live but would certainly visit to take in dinner and a show -- just so long as the streets are clean and well-patrolled, and no one asks them to take a personal interest in how they might remain so.