How Manhattan Became A Rich Ghost Town

From The Atlantic, Oct. 15:

New York’s empty storefronts are a night omen for the futurity of cities.

These days, walking through parts of Manhattan feels similar occupying 2 worlds at the same time. In a theoretical universe, yous are standing inward the nation’s uppercase of business, commerce, in addition to culture. In the physical universe, the stores are closed, the lights are off, in addition to the windows are plastered alongside for-lease signs. Long stretches of famous thoroughfares—like Bleecker Street inward the West Village in addition to Fifth Avenue inward the East 40s—are filled alongside vacant storefronts. Their night windows serve every bit daytime mirrors for rich pedestrians. It’s similar the actualization of a Yogi Berra joke: Nobody shops at that spot anymore—it’s every bit good desirable.

H5N1 rich ghost town sounds similar a capitalist paradox. So what the heck is going on? Behind the darkened windows, there’s a deeper even out nigh money in addition to land, alongside implications for the futurity of cities in addition to the repose of the United States.

Let’s commencement alongside the data. Separate surveys past times Douglas Elliman, a real-estate company, in addition to Morgan Stanley determined that at to the lowest degree 20 percent of Manhattan’s street retail is vacant or nigh to move vacant. (The city government’s estimate is lower.) The position out of retail workers inward Manhattan has fallen for 3 forthwith years past times more than 10,000. That sector has lost to a greater extent than jobs since 2014, during a menstruum of potent in addition to steady economical growth, than during the Great Recession.

There are at to the lowest degree 3 interlinked causes. First, the rent, every bit yous may select heard, is every bit good damn high. It’s no coincidence that retail vacancies are highest in some of the most expensive parts of the city, similar the West Village in addition to nigh Times Square. From 2010 to 2014, commercial rents inward the most-trafficked Manhattan shopping corridors little dark-brown boxes rather than big dark-brown bags.

Walking some the Upper East Side, where I live, I notice it boom how many of the establishments all the same standing amid the many darkened windows are pilus salons, nail salons, facial salons, eyebrow places, in addition to restaurants. What’s the 1 affair they select inward common? You won’t notice their services on Amazon. The network won’t cutting my hair, in addition to non fifty-fifty the most homesick midwesterner goes online to club a deep dish to live delivered from Chicago to New York. Online shopping has digitized a detail sort of business—mostly durable, nonperishable, in addition to tradable goods—that 1 used to essay out inward subdivision stores or similar establishments. Their disappearance has opened upward huge swaths of existent estate.

One mightiness aspect that novel companies would fill upward the vacuum, especially given the prove that e-commerce companies tin hand the sack boost online sales past times opening physical locations. But that brings us to the tertiary problem: Many landlords don’t desire to offering short-term leases to pop-up stores if they intend a richer, longer-term bargain is forthcoming from a national build alongside money to burn, similar a banking concern branch or retail chain. The final result is a stubborn marketplace imbalance: The fastest-growing online retailers are looking to experiment alongside short-term leases, exactly the landlords are asset out for long-term tenants....MUCH MORE

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