COMMERCE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS -- Part 15

Main Streets, Business Improvement Districts and Downtowns Lead the Way

“Places with strong local economic ecosystems will endure and recover,” said Marohn, who often writes about the inequity of heavy incentives given to national chains with no local roots – by cities that do little to nothing to level the playing field for locally-owned businesses.

“The current crisis will also put a large strain on cities’ budgets, and this will be felt most acutely in those places whose finances were already stretched by decades of low-returning development choices and deferred maintenance of overbuilt infrastructure,” said Marohn, whose recent book rails against the unsustainability of sprawled growth. 

“We’ve observed time and time again that the walkable, human scale, traditional pattern of development is the most financially productive approach to building human settlements, and these cities will be the most able, in the long recovery to come, to provide the services essential for their residents’ health and well-being.”