Mom and Popeyes: Small Businesses Fight to Survive (2010) Archives : City Limits

Mom and Popeyes: Small Businesses Fight to Survive (2010)

The deli that gives credit. The diner with the perfect burger. The clothier who knows your size. Small businesses help make New York’s neighborhoods what they are. But on many retail strips, a City Limits investigation finds, they are disappearing.

Competition from chain stores, rising commercial rents and the lingering recession are part of the pressure. But city and state policies, on everything from parking enforcement to zoning, are also squeezing small businesses.

What separates the businesses who make it from those who fail? What could government do to help mom and pop firms survive? And what will neighborhoods look like if they don’t?

Economy

The Survivors

Melanie Lefkowitz | December 21, 2010

“People want to shop local. There is a big movement around it, and people understand it.”

Bronx

The Casualties

Melanie Lefkowitz | December 21, 2010

“A lot of small businesses aren’t getting the assistance they need to become more competitive.”

Economy

The Strip

Melanie Lefkowitz | December 21, 2010

“If you’re the manager of a chain, a clean sidewalk doesn’t change the numbers on the register.”

Economy

Small Businesses On The Edge In Bay Ridge

Melanie Lefkowitz | December 1, 2010

In an excerpt from the City Limits magazine investigation of small businesses in New York, a look at the holdouts along increasingly chain-ganged 86th Street.