Economy
New York’s Small Businesses See a Glimmer of Hope Against Rising Rents
Leaders at the city and state levels say they’re prepared to address the closure of mom-and-pop shops, but some key hurdles may stand in the way.
For the past few months, New York City has been caught in a debate over what might seem like a simple question: How many vacant storefronts are there across the city?
The answer is harder to find than you might expect. The debate kicked off with an eye-popping statistic reported in The New York Times that 20 percent of Manhattan’s retail space is vacant, followed by a convincing account of why that figure is probably wrong. And while there’s an abundance of more conservative estimates (the City Council puts Manhattan at closer to 4 percent overall), the fact is that New York retail vacancies aren’t tracked in a comprehensive way.