President Trump’s proposed budget wants to scale back on a number of job training programs, including those aimed at helping seniors, disadvantaged young people and unemployed Americans.

It’s an exciting but disconcertingly unsettled time here in the hinterlands between the vast and troubled rust belt to our north and west and the bustling problem-plagued metropolis to the south. All eyes are glued to the screen watching the soap opera that national politics, where one person’s narcissistic claptrap is another’s revealed wisdom. What is a poor soul to do?

After years of playing second fiddle to the suburban areas around them, some — but not all — of the Hudson Valley’s urban centers are to some degree thriving again, though not by doing what they used to do.