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Peter Miller, occasional writer at the Huffington Post, writes a diatribe against changes in the businesses in his neighborhood.

My New York City neighborhood is under attack, and not by Al Qaeda. The invaders are corporate chain stores, spreading like a disease through our once healthy community.
Dozens of small independent businesses along Broadway, the main shopping street in upper Manhattan, are shutting down, their rents having been multiplied by landlords eager to cash in on a robust rental market. In the last two years, we’ve lost our amazing video store, where the staff cared passionately about cinema and delivered obscure DVDs to one’s door. Rents drove out a homey family-run rice and beans joint that served scrumptious Cuban sandwiches and mango shakes. The space it used to occupy is now for lease — the price is beyond the reach of anyone but national chains. Last year, the local Chinese restaurant that served up pretty good dim sum on Sundays was replaced by a Bank of America branch.  via Peter Miller

Now I understand his longing for the old, but his selfishness is also screaming out. And I can say this as a person who owned a restaurant that got pushed out by the chain restaurants coming in and sucking up all the potential customers and putting me out of business.

But it was my fault, just as it was the fault of the beans restaurant and the video store and Peter and his neighbors. If these businesses that were so important to his experience were profitable and innovative, odds are they could absorb the rent increase. If Peter and his neighbors thought so much of them, he would have frequented them more.

Instead we have this amazing whiny diatribe of how chains are taking over the neighborhood. But the chains have found a way to be profitable in his neighborhood. Obviously people are shopping and buying things from these chain stores and they can pay the increased rents. So the demand of Peter Miller’s neighbors are being met, when the previous stores could not.

And at the same time the landlord is getting fair market value for his properties. These people feel that their is a God given right for things to remain the same. That it is the landlord’s duty to subsidize Peter’s lifestyle and desires as opposed to the neighbor supporting the business so that Peter can have his desires met.

It is nice to have a great neighborhood of sole proprietors. I have lived in Manhattan and enjoyed this myself. However, for a guy to fuss about a rice and bean restaurant closing that I am sure the author only frequented once a month and walked by as it was half empty night after night is self serving. And to expect the landlord not to raise his rents to subsidize the independent bookstore is downright selfish.

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