In this week's letters section, Sarah Garland, the author of the book "Gangs In Garden City" responds to an editorial in our July 17 issue which criticized her book.

In her letter she says that she would like to provoke a discussion about whether wealthy communities bear responsibility for the fates their poorer neighbors.

To a great extent we do actually agree with her, but we believe Garden City and other wealthy communities are already doing a great deal to narrow the gap. In particular, Garden City and other wealthy communities are helping fund the Hempstead school district's programs through state aid payments, which are paid for by everyone's taxes.

The Hempstead School District currently receives 53% of its revenues from state aid, up from 41% a decade ago. During the same time period, Garden City's education state aid has remained at about 6% of the budget. (Information about local government budgets can be found online at www.openbooknewyork.com )

While there may be a few people who feel that Garden City is not getting its fair share in state aid, we think that many people feel that there is some justice in attempting to level the playing field for school children.

In addition to involuntarily providing money through taxation, Garden City residents also provide economic support to the Hempstead business district. Ms. Garland points to the closure of the A&S store in Hempstead as an example of a business leaving a poorer area for a wealthier one. What she fails to mention is that there is a now a Home Depot at that location, and we'd wager that a great deal of its business is from Garden City and other wealthy communities. Have "mom and pop" businesses suffered in downtown Hempstead? Of course - but they also suffered in village business districts throughout Long Island as malls gained market share.

There is no doubt that there is a rise in gang violence on Long Island. The question is whether Garden City is partially responsible for that rise. We don't believe it is, and we also believe there are other explanations that were not discussed in the book, such as the rise in housing programs which moved people from inner city housing projects to suburbs. This connection was discussed in The Atlantic magazine in its July/August 2008 issue, but was not mentioned in the book.

We hope some of our readers would also like to weigh in on this topic.

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher