Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the passage only.

Closing a coal mine closes far more than a mine. In a district built around one, the contractors, the transporters, the shops and the municipal revenue all rest on it, and none of them appears in the plan that sets the closure date. Where transitions have gone well, the terms were settled in advance and written down: what the workers are owed, who pays for the land to be made usable again, what the district's revenue is replaced with and by when. Where they have gone badly, the same questions were left to be answered after the closure, by whoever was still there. The date is the easy part of the plan to fix. It is the part that gets fixed first, and often the only part.

Which one of the following statements best reflects the most logical, rational and crucial message conveyed by the passage?