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"a scourge of store closings is afflicting one section of the city after another, notably in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. This plague has been underway for several years, but its familiarity does not diminish the damage inflicted on the economic and the psychic well-being of neighborhoods. One by one, cherished local shops are disappearing, replaced by national chains or, worse, nothing at all."
Have you read this editorial in the NYT? New York City is losing its retailers by the hundreds; tons of city blocks with vacant storefronts. Not quite sure if this is really a NYC problem, it may be happening everywhere to a lesser extent. But I agree when the NYT says that shops and restaurants are what make New York City feel like New York City. And also, New York City residents depend on these shops!
Why are other cities like London and Paris able to keep their city blocks filled with thriving shops, and New York City is not? Paris manages to even keep bookstores and record stores mobbed with shoppers! Walking down a block in Paris, you will see a grocer, a hardware store, a chocolate shop, a bookshop, a shop that sells Spanish ham, a fishmonger, restaurants, a perfumerie, etc. Why has New York lost this????
What is New York City, and the U.S. in general, doing wrong? Are we allowing online shopping to kill our cities?
Those other cities still have a real middle class. Even Beijing and Shanghai don't suffer like NYC.
You get too many rich folks concentrated and there's really no point to anything less than a bespoke experience, know what I mean? What super-rich person besides Warren Buffett wants to waste time at a typical retail store, however high-end it tries to appear, when the store probably goes to them? Like, send a special "account manager" to that person's home to take measures, whatever.
So the rest of the brick-n-mortar operations are chasing the disappearing (true) middle class...well, um, like, no.
There's too much of a tax break for landlords who keep their stores vacant. As mentioned in the article, they hold out for a flush chain to come along, and it doesn't matter how long that takes because the landlord in the meantime can write it off. We need to limit that somehow so that landlords after a period of time have to accept a new tenant.
Those other cities still have a real middle class. Even Beijing and Shanghai don't suffer like NYC.
You get too many rich folks concentrated and there's really no point to anything less than a bespoke experience, know what I mean? What super-rich person besides Warren Buffett wants to waste time at a typical retail store, however high-end it tries to appear, when the store probably goes to them? Like, send a special "account manager" to that person's home to take measures, whatever.
So the rest of the brick-n-mortar operations are chasing the disappearing (true) middle class...well, um, like, no.
So nobody in Manhattan or Brooklyn needs a corner grocer? Or hardware store? Or coffee/bakery shop? Because they are too rich? I don't get it. Everybody eventually needs to buy food and a hammer and a coffee. Sometime.
There's too much of a tax break for landlords who keep their stores vacant. As mentioned in the article, they hold out for a flush chain to come along, and it doesn't matter how long that takes because the landlord in the meantime can write it off. We need to limit that somehow so that landlords after a period of time have to accept a new tenant.
But the chains are closing also. It's not just independent retailers, it's chain retailers leaving as well.
"a scourge of store closings is afflicting one section of the city after another, notably in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. This plague has been underway for several years, but its familiarity does not diminish the damage inflicted on the economic and the psychic well-being of neighborhoods. One by one, cherished local shops are disappearing, replaced by national chains or, worse, nothing at all."
Have you read this editorial in the NYT? New York City is losing its retailers by the hundreds; tons of city blocks with vacant storefronts. Not quite sure if this is really a NYC problem, it may be happening everywhere to a lesser extent. But I agree when the NYT says that shops and restaurants are what make New York City feel like New York City. And also, New York City residents depend on these shops!
Why are other cities like London and Paris able to keep their city blocks filled with thriving shops, and New York City is not? Paris manages to even keep bookstores and record stores mobbed with shoppers! Walking down a block in Paris, you will see a grocer, a hardware store, a chocolate shop, a shop that sells Spanish ham, a fishmonger, restaurants, a perfumerie, etc. Why has New York lost this????
What is New York City, and the U.S. in general, doing wrong? Are we allowing online shopping to kill our cities?
Too many wealthy people in this city who buy but also don't live in the city physically. We assume that some Arab mogul, Russian oligarchy, or some Chinese billionaire buying a multi millionaire dollar pad is a good thing I'm theory. However, some of these folks don't live there and thus don't shop in these luxury stores. This is why many shops are closing in wealthy areas.
Around me ever since they announced the 50% plus in min wage increase there has been more restaurants going out of business than new ones opening. Only businesses booming recently seems to be urgent care businesses. I mean it all just comes down to simple math. It's either the rent is too high or the labor too costly. Ultimately what needs to happen is that prices need to go up and people need to be willing to pay for them or else you're not going to see people risk their capital in opening new businesses.
So nobody in Manhattan or Brooklyn needs a corner grocer? Or hardware store? Or coffee/bakery shop? Because they are too rich? I don't get it. Everybody eventually needs to buy food and a hammer and a coffee. Sometime.
A corner grocer, old-timey hardware store, etc., can't afford these rents.
And the folks who live in the nabe obviously can afford Blue Ribbon, delivered take-out, etc. (Heck, they might even 3D-print their own hammers and screwdrivers!)
In general, the presence of very rich people (and I don't even mean "just" $500K per annum) totally skews everything in this town. It always has, from what I've read, but these days it's the super-rich from all over.
Kinda like how the working class are competing with labor from all over the world right here in the form of illegal aliens (love how leftists [though I'm a Sanders man myself, I also hold with Al "Angriest Man in America" Shanker] try working in editorial commentary though their choice of words)...only in commercial real estate it's the super-rich from all over the world driving the economic environment here.
What is New York City, and the U.S. in general, doing wrong? Are we allowing online shopping to kill our cities?
No one "allowed" anything; our cities are paralyzed because of an absence of both resolve and pragmatism by spineless politicians and the spoiled children who elected them.
When I returned to New York after an eighteen-year absence in the early Nineties (Giuliani administration), one of the fist things I notice was a healthy revival of "street-level commerce" -- not the brick-and-mortar establishments, but the sellers of the necessities of daily activity. I was informed that the participants linked much of this recovery to the reduction in micro-management (not an absence of the rules, but a recognition that there was a point beyond which they could not be further "fine-tuned"). Unfortunately, these gains seem to have been reduced and negated by the rise of "identity politics" and Political Correctness,
Quote:
Why has New York lost this????
As much as I might dislike the personality of our current President, he was elected by people who live outside the sheltered, "trendy" enclaves; people who simply decided they'd had enough. But national politics has relatively little to do with this, save the for the misuse of power; remove the artificial obstacles, and commerce driven by natural economic forces will quickly regenerate. What New York thinks is best for all of us doesn't always work in Pittsburgh, and when the bi-coastal elite seeks to wall out the economic forces which are apparently working elsewhere, it will suffer some of the consequences.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 11-20-2017 at 08:27 AM..
A corner grocer, old-timey hardware store, etc., can't afford these rents.
And the folks who live in the nabe obviously can afford Blue Ribbon, delivered take-out, etc. (Heck, they might even 3D-print their own hammers and screwdrivers!)
In general, the presence of very rich people (and I don't even mean "just" $500K per annum) totally skews everything in this town. It always has, from what I've read, but these days it's the super-rich from all over.
Kinda like how the working class are competing with labor from all over the world right here in the form of illegal aliens (love how leftists [though I'm a Sanders man myself, I also hold with Al "Angriest Man in America" Shanker] try working in editorial commentary though their choice of words)...only in commercial real estate it's the super-rich from all over the world driving the economic environment here.
There are plenty of "super-rich" in Paris, and still plenty of bookstores, hardware stores and corner grocers.
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