Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Return of Urban Retail Deserts
City Journal ^ | 9/13/23 | Steven Malanga

Posted on 09/14/2023 6:37:47 AM PDT by CFW

The rising social disorder and crime of the 1970s and 1980s drove out not only hundreds of thousands of residents from New York City, but also many businesses. Within a few years, entire communities lacked basic amenities like supermarkets and drugstores; empty storefronts littered shopping districts. That started to change only when crime began falling in the 1990s and neighborhoods rebounded—first in New York and then in other big cities—prompting national retailers to begin setting up shop in places that they had once avoided. Thousands of stores and tens of thousands of jobs blossomed in New York alone thanks to this retail revival. But those gains are vanishing before our eyes as rising retail theft is driving a new era of closings.

It took decades for New York’s retailers to recover from the disorder and crime waves of the 1970s and 1980s. Entire districts lacked basic shopping choices, including Harlem, a community of more than 100,000 residents that didn’t have a single large-chain supermarket for more than 20 years. Once-flourishing shopping districts in the South Bronx and in neighborhoods like Bushwick in Brooklyn played host to boarded-up storefronts—vestiges of rioting and arson. National retail chains with the everyday stuff people wanted—Home Depot, Lowes, Target—shunned the city, leading to an exodus of dollars. One study in the early 1980s estimated that Queens residents alone spent half of their purchasing power, more than $1 billion a year back then, shopping in Nassau County. By the early 1990s, a consumer survey found that 56 percent of city residents left New York at least once a month to shop. Nearly 30 percent said they went specifically to buy at stores that didn’t exist in the city—an irony, considering that Gotham had once been considered one of the world’s great retail cities.

(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: anarchotyranny; crime; deserts; dystopia; economy; retail; theft; urbandecay
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-62 next last
To: CFW

“That started to change only when crime began falling in the 1990s and neighborhoods rebounded...”

Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!

No more kick-but, tough on crime Mayors since Rudy.

Of course, crime just ebbs and flows - like MAGIC! Right, Socialist Democrats?


21 posted on 09/14/2023 7:13:05 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (I don't have, 'Hobbies.' I'm developing a robust Post-Apocalyptic skill set. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Diana in Wisconsin

Crime goes away once the Revolution is complete. Then all criminals will go up against the wall. Along with anyone else deemed a “Counter-Revolutionary”.


22 posted on 09/14/2023 7:15:11 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

Hide your money in your books.


23 posted on 09/14/2023 7:20:21 AM PDT by bigdaddy45
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: bigdaddy45

“I wish you a Merry Welfare and a Happy Food Stamp!”


24 posted on 09/14/2023 7:21:30 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: CFW

I remember taking a combination of buses and trains for almost three hours each direction to get from Hyde Park, Chicago to the Montgomery Ward in Oak Lawn to get a Coleco Adam daisy wheel printer ribbon.

While I was there, I had dinner at Chi-Chi’s which was better than the Jewish run El Lugar on 55th.


25 posted on 09/14/2023 7:26:13 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("If you can’t say something nice . . . say the Rosary." [Red Badger])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CFW

Everyone knows racism is the actual cause. /s


26 posted on 09/14/2023 7:28:45 AM PDT by pas
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CFW

I don’t care, but do hope they start to realize why this is happening and maybe feel a little nervous about going downtown for other reasons like dining and entertainment


27 posted on 09/14/2023 7:31:34 AM PDT by bigbob (Q)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Brian Griffin

All moot once they ban hammers as potential weapons and DIY as a practice that deprives union tradesmen of their livelihood.


28 posted on 09/14/2023 7:34:42 AM PDT by bigbob (Q)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: bk1000

My Give A Damn meter must need new batteries. It’s not moving off of zero.


29 posted on 09/14/2023 7:39:45 AM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: CFW

When the places are not staffed because no one wants to work for $20/hour because welfare pays $25/hour, the stores won’t be open... end of problem.


30 posted on 09/14/2023 7:43:21 AM PDT by L,TOWM (An upraised middle finger is my virtue signal.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CFW

And this article gets incorporated into the Social Justice curriculum when...?


31 posted on 09/14/2023 7:44:05 AM PDT by nicollo ("This is FR!")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: CFW
Retail stores are White?


32 posted on 09/14/2023 7:44:10 AM PDT by mikey_hates_everything
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

It’s not my fault. Not my problem.

And I’m not going to even try to fix it either.


33 posted on 09/14/2023 7:55:57 AM PDT by drSteve78 (Je suis Deplorable. Even more so)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: bigfootbob
That’s been discussed in California. They had some absurd idea about taxing people who moved out of state…I don’t recall all the particulars but it should have been called the California remembrance tax. Freakin’ commies.

When I left Pacific Bell in Nov 1991, the company paid out my 401k on exit. I did a direct transfer to another 401k to avoid having a "distribution" that was taxable. Pacific Bell was dumping huge numbers of employees at the time and the state of CA sent out a notice that any retirement income earned inside CA would be taxable by CA upon distribution no matter where you moved. Such BS. You've never seen so many middle fingers raised by employees and their legal counsel in the direction of CA government.

34 posted on 09/14/2023 8:03:04 AM PDT by Myrddin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: CFW

No mention of shit and needles on the sidewalk?


35 posted on 09/14/2023 8:10:20 AM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeInPA

“driving the thugs from the hood.”

Only works if they are shot while looting.


36 posted on 09/14/2023 8:23:21 AM PDT by dynachrome (War does not determine who is right, but who is left.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeInPA

You have much more expertise in this area than I, but from what I’ve read and occasionally seen your hope for local support of small businesses in the urban deserts is not likely to happen.

The people who are willing to take the risks to open small shops in these areas seem to be recent immigrants, now the trend is Arabs, earlier, people from east Asia. The have no inherent fondness for their customers and they tend not to trust them and take active measures to prevent theft. Both their honest and dishonest clientele resent this. And theirs will be the first businesses attacked the next time there is an opportunity ‘to let the people touch those things’.

Now, if the honest people in urban areas, the majority, would take active measures against the dishonest, there would be hope. But there has been little evidence of that happening anywhere.


37 posted on 09/14/2023 8:26:25 AM PDT by hanamizu ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Myrddin

Good. I’m glad that they didn’t get their grubby little d$ck beaters on any of your property.


38 posted on 09/14/2023 8:29:21 AM PDT by bigfootbob (Arm Up and Live Free!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Diana in Wisconsin
Of course, crime just ebbs and flows - like MAGIC! Right, Socialist Democrats?

It appears that the idiots in NYC (voters) have created their own cycle of improvement and destruction.

High crime, vote in a Republican ti fix it.

Everything's ok, vote in democrats to destroy it.

Short memories and stupidity.

And these indoctrinated dolts seem to think they are superior to the rubes in the country who provide their food.

39 posted on 09/14/2023 8:33:19 AM PDT by Mogger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: CFW
It all started in earnest during the indigenous 2015 Baltimore Riot. That poor CVS.

"Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has a unique (one would hope) method for dealing with rioters: Let them destroy property.

The mayor made this shocking admission on Sunday, saying at a press conference that during her city’s weekend riots, she wanted to “give those who wished to destroy, space to do that.”

40 posted on 09/14/2023 8:33:25 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-62 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson