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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
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To: CFW

Good luck with that. Unless the cities are going to chip in to pay the rent, pay for the inventory, and pay the employees, passing a law won’t stop anything.


41 posted on 09/14/2023 9:32:37 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: ClearCase_guy
"Not my monkeys."


42 posted on 09/14/2023 9:33:46 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: ConservativeInPA

Ghetto dwellers don’t care. They’ll give lip service to “supporting black businesses” but as soon as the big chains leave, they’ll loot all the small black businesses to death also.


43 posted on 09/14/2023 9:36:41 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: CFW
The Dindonuffins didn't do "nothing". They did plenty.

The blame needs to be pinned where it belongs as well as the cures to these preventable problems.

44 posted on 09/14/2023 9:39:53 AM PDT by Gritty (The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the Revolution. - Saul Alinsky)
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To: Dr. Sivana

A ribbon for an Adam printer! I see you are also a person of culture. (And probably close to my age, as I remember standing in line at the local K-mart waiting for them to open so that I could get my $50 TI 99-4A computer on black Friday, and remember traveling across town to get an Atari 5200).


45 posted on 09/14/2023 9:43:51 AM PDT by FrankRizzo890
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To: CFW
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.

It's time to take a deep breath and get real - stores can't afford to stay in business in hellhole communities. And while we're getting real - I'd like to state the obvious - lots of us are tired of OUR local tax money going to police and fire department for the sake of babysitting the black community. It might be time to start charging for police and fire assistance on a block by block basis AFTER THE BASIC MINIMUM HAS BEEN REACHED.

NO MORE BABYSITTING THE BLACK COMMUNITY - THEY CAN PAY THEIR OWN WAY FOR THEIR OUT OF CONTROL CRIMINAL ACTIVITY.

46 posted on 09/14/2023 9:55:59 AM PDT by GOPJ (Our side must NOT work with democrats. Or we'll Bud Light them...)
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To: CFW
National retail chains with the everyday stuff people wanted—Home Depot, Lowes, Target—shunned the city, leading to an exodus of dollars.

Complete BS. These chains didn't shun the city. They were KEPT out for the longest time by the New York City Council, who at the time were pretending to care about local businesses and the "unique character" of the city. I have a long memory. Walmart was trying to get in for eons.

47 posted on 09/14/2023 9:57:04 AM PDT by hellinahandcart
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To: Boogieman

Let them starve then.


48 posted on 09/14/2023 9:59:48 AM PDT by ConservativeInPA (The Delay Trump’s trial, delay. Elect Trump President. Trump pardons himself. )
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To: Boogieman

“as soon as the big chains leave, they’ll loot all the small black businesses to death also”

Black business owners have no interest in getting ripped off—if they have any cash they would much wiser to put it in T Bills paying 5%.


49 posted on 09/14/2023 10:00:20 AM PDT by cgbg ("Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training." Anna Freud.)
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To: Gritty
... as well as the cures to these preventable problems.

Mayby we could lend from Jonathan Swift's booklet titled, 'A Modest Proposal Is Proposed'.

In his most famous piece of satire, “A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick,” Swift called attention to the plight of the Irish by proposing an outlandish plan to help Ireland’s poor.

He begins A Modest Proposal by describing the sorry state of the majority of Ireland’s population in detailed terms, leading the reader to believe he has a compassionate solution in mind, thus making it even more shocking when he states his proposal:

“I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy (Irish) child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.”

/S

50 posted on 09/14/2023 10:07:24 AM PDT by JesusIsLord
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To: bigfootbob
Good. I’m glad that they didn’t get their grubby little d$ck beaters on any of your property.

As if the state of CA wasn't bad enough, some corporate lawyers pushed out a 5 page document putting intellectual property handcuffs on employees, their heirs and assigns in perpetuity. My copy always went right to the shredder. No way am I stupid enough to sign such a document. I left the legal battle to other employees who had the financial means to engage the corporate nitwits. About 6 weeks after the first document hit my desk, a letter explaining that is was all a big mistake and there is no need to sign the document.

51 posted on 09/14/2023 10:10:43 AM PDT by Myrddin
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To: FrankRizzo890

I had a TI-994A too, though my dad bought that. Had the expansion module too that included some RAM and a 5 1/4” floppy drive :)


52 posted on 09/14/2023 10:33:06 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Amazon?

I’ve opted more frequently for them since many, many stores refuse to stock their shelves with anything other than their lower-quality “store brand” crappola.

The bit about food deserts was always a load of BS.

Now, ignore it entirely. Tell them to make Amazon richer.


53 posted on 09/14/2023 10:40:50 AM PDT by bobbo666 (Baizuo)
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To: eyeamok

BTT


54 posted on 09/14/2023 11:09:13 AM PDT by GailA (Constitution vs evil Treasonous political Apparatchiks, Constitutional Conservative.)
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To: Boogieman

I didn’t have the expansion at the time, I WANTED one though, as you could get an assembler for it, and write your own assembly language programs if you had the expansion.


55 posted on 09/14/2023 11:12:09 AM PDT by FrankRizzo890
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To: FrankRizzo890

“you could get an assembler for it, and write your own assembly language programs if you had the expansion”

I never knew that, but I was probably about 3 or 4 years old at the time. I had my hands full learning BASIC and LOGO :)


56 posted on 09/14/2023 11:16:14 AM PDT by Boogieman
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To: changeitback440

Certain minorities do it on purpose so they can feel sorry for themselves.


57 posted on 09/14/2023 11:20:07 AM PDT by Lockbar (Even when you think you finally have enough ammo, you still really don't have enough. )
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To: CFW
Now that legitimate businesses are being driven out of inner cities a second time, they may never come back.

File under "Fool me once..."

Below will be how many inner city folk will be getting their groceries.


58 posted on 09/14/2023 11:21:15 AM PDT by SamAdams76 (6,390,901 Truth | 86,874,940 Twitter)
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To: FrankRizzo890

The Atari 5200?! That non-self-centering joystick was a huge mistake.


59 posted on 09/14/2023 11:58:15 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("If you can’t say something nice . . . say the Rosary." [Red Badger])
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To: Myrddin

I love a good story in the morning!


60 posted on 09/15/2023 5:18:16 AM PDT by bigfootbob (Arm Up and Live Free!)
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