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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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I expect to hear soon that laws have been passed in NY, Chicago, and other urban hell-holes to prevent companies or retail outlets from closing their stores in those cities.
1 posted on 09/14/2023 6:37:47 AM PDT by CFW
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To: CFW

Black people ought to blame black people. For everything.

It’s not my fault. Not my problem. Totally don’t care anymore. Not my circus. Not my monkeys.


2 posted on 09/14/2023 6:42:15 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (They say "Our Democracy" but they mean Cosa Nostra.)
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To: CFW

We know what the common-denominator is but no one wants to talk about it.


3 posted on 09/14/2023 6:42:30 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
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To: CFW

some people cannot have nice things


4 posted on 09/14/2023 6:44:23 AM PDT by changeitback440
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To: CFW

biden economy


5 posted on 09/14/2023 6:44:37 AM PDT by no-to-illegals (The enemy has US surrounded. May God have mercy on them.)
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To: CFW

It’s not “hunger and poverty” that is causing this. There are plenty of jobs available, and plenty of government handouts.


6 posted on 09/14/2023 6:46:12 AM PDT by Fido969 (45 is Superman! )
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To: CFW

Sorry, but my inherent white privilege prevents me from giving a rats ass that black folks have destroyed their neighborhoods, cities and businesses from rampant violence, crime and theft. I DON’T CARE


7 posted on 09/14/2023 6:50:57 AM PDT by eyeamok
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To: CFW

8 posted on 09/14/2023 6:52:06 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: CFW

Shades of Atlas Shruggd.


9 posted on 09/14/2023 6:53:45 AM PDT by kallisti (Stay aware, no matter what happens or apparently happens.)
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To: CFW

After watching all the videos of the thieving bastards blatantly walking out of stores with all they can carry, I say let them rot in their “retail desert”. I have no sympathy for them.


10 posted on 09/14/2023 6:54:01 AM PDT by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: CFW

I would love to know, how exactly such laws can be enforced.

I don’t doubt they might try to have such laws, but wonder how you enforce it. Businesses close locations all the time, for various reasons. And the reasons aren’t always due to security problems or massive shoplifting.


11 posted on 09/14/2023 6:55:40 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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Comment #12 Removed by Moderator

To: CFW

You can only open so many Pickleball courts!!


13 posted on 09/14/2023 7:01:33 AM PDT by paul in cape
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To: CFW
I have zero sympathy, but some hope. If the big retailers won’t service these places, perhaps small businesses can takes their places after enlisting support from the hoods they operate. By support, I mean people actually looking after each other … putting the neighbor back into the hood and driving the thugs from the hood.

The goodness that comes from this the community it creates. Big retailers don’t create community. You can tell because they have programs and advertising that makes it sounds like they do. I loathe big business more and more each day. Big business is plastic.

I made my living from doing business with big businesses. It became increasingly more distasteful each year. My solace was knowing that I wasn’t an employee and my contracts would come to an end. The political correctness, group think, and utter lack of critical thinking was difficult to handle. It must only be worse today given so much wokeness. All of that to me is antithetical to being a rugged individualistic American.

For America to survive, entrepreneurs and small businessMEN who are rooted in their communities need to lead the way.

14 posted on 09/14/2023 7:02:59 AM PDT by ConservativeInPA (The Delay Trump’s trial, delay. Elect Trump President. Trump pardons himself. )
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To: CFW

“crime began falling in the 1990s and neighborhoods rebounded—first in New York and then in other big cities”

Hmmm...who could have been mayor of New York City in the 1990’s?

Whoever it was should be in jail.

It was likely someone who worked with Trump, probably Rudy Giuliani.

(sarcasm)


15 posted on 09/14/2023 7:03:01 AM PDT by packagingguy
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To: CFW

Black/Brown communities prior to the 1960’s had this problem because the savages ran off retail companies through rampant theft and robberies. Then there was more law enforcement and attention brought to those areas and civility allowed retail to flourish. Now, liberals have demanded no more prosecutions for crimes in those areas and retail is closing.

It was easy to predict, and it was predicted.


16 posted on 09/14/2023 7:04:44 AM PDT by CodeToad (No Arm up! They have!)
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To: CFW

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

Crime just magically dropped in the 90s. It was a miracle. It had nothing to do with any policy change. It just happened.

L


17 posted on 09/14/2023 7:04:51 AM PDT by Lurker ( Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is. )
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To: Dilbert San Diego

“I would love to know, how exactly such laws can be enforced.

I don’t doubt they might try to have such laws, but wonder how you enforce it. Businesses close locations all the time, for various reasons. And the reasons aren’t always due to security problems or massive shoplifting.”


I believe a city in California tried to prevent groceries stores from closing a couple of years ago by imposing financial penalties. So, I have no doubt they would try it.


18 posted on 09/14/2023 7:06:20 AM PDT by CFW (I will not comply!)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

“I would love to know, how exactly such laws can be enforced.”

On September 13, Mr. Noir went to buy a hammer at Home Depot.

He found the local store had closed and he had to drive 12 miles to a store in Montgomery County and back.

Judgement is ordered for Mr. Noir for 2*12*56 cents a mile plus one hour of Mr. Noir’s time at $20/hour for a total of $33.44 against Home Depot.

Judgement is ordered for the city of Washington, DC for 84 cents to compensate for the loss of sales tax against Home Depot.

Judgement is ordered for the DC Inferior Court for $60 of court costs against Home Depot.


19 posted on 09/14/2023 7:07:46 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: CFW

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.


20 posted on 09/14/2023 7:11:34 AM PDT by bigfootbob (Arm Up and Live Free!)
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