Solution: Who Ya Gonna Call?

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Solution: Who Ya Gonna Call?

Answer: SPIRIT PHONE

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The 1-2-3 crossword solves straightforwardly:

MO	BIL	E		SAL	I	A		U	REN	A
ABI	LE	NE		INA	MON	TH		P	A	LPI
TES	T	R	UN	S		ENS	H	R	I	NE
		GIZ	A				EL	I
POO	L	ER		YA	LE	UN	I	VER	SIT	Y
RE	EVE		KHA	R	T	O	UM		C	AP
ST	R	AP	LE	S	SGO	WN		CH	OM	PED
		PAL	ES				MAR	A
SP	HER	O	I	D		M	TH	E	R	MON
ANA	M	OSA		OTE	R	O		BOL	IVA	R
WAY	AN	S		DU	L	UTH		S	L	OE

Eleven answers (highlighted above) are US cities, and their clues sharing the same syntax indicates those entries are important. This is supported by the image below the puzzle showing a path spanning 11 points. Overlaying that path on a US map at the right scale confirms that the points on that path mark the cities in the crossword, which gives an ordering to the cities (from ANAMOSA at the "S" flag to MONROE at the "F" flag).

The title of the puzzle, as well as "in the area" in the flavortext, hint that we want to find the area codes for these cities. Realizing that the city answers are all 3 boxes long, solvers find that taking the number of letters in each of a city answer's 3 boxes results in a 3-digit number that is one digit off from the city's area code. For example, MOBILE is split MO/BIL/E, giving the digits 231, which only differs from Mobile, Alabama's area code 251 in the second digit.

City	Letters per box	Area code	Difference
ANAMOSA, IA	313	319	6
ALPINE, TX	132	432	3
ABILENE, TX	322	325	3
POOLER, GA	312	912	6
BOLIVAR, TN	331	731	4
DULUTH, MN	213	218	5
SPANAWAY, WA	233	253	2
ATHENS, TN	123	423	3
MOBILE, AL	231	251	2
SALINAS, CA	331	831	5
MONROE, LA	312	318	6

The final step, as clued by the flavortext, is to use the difference between the conflicting digits as an index into the city name. In path order, the extracted letters spell this puzzle's answer, SPIRIT PHONE.