Among the unexpected turns of events that occur on a regular basis, perhaps none was so unexpected as the renaissance of America's major urban centers.
Yet it's happening. Those of us who move about New York City (the home of SN) on a daily basis can't help noticing that in the last couple of years crime rates have gone into steep decline, sidewalks are cleaner and graffiti have all but vanished from buildings and subways (although subway graffiti have been replaced by the ubiquitous scratching of window glass).
And New York hardly stands alone among the nation's major urban centers in its achievement of quality-of-life improvements. Nearly all others have made similar strides.
But the story of urban renewal isn't one that has achieved the currency it should. Many Americans remain convinced that their cities are mired in intractable problems. That fact was illuminated by the newsletter of the Local Initiatives Support Corp. that landed on my desk. The LISC is an organization that raises funds from numerous groups, including some on the vendor and retailer sides of the food business, and which deploys funds into refurbishing urban housing, into helping finance urban supermarkets and into other projects.
A study of the public's attitudes about American cities undertaken by the LISC and the Center for National Policy shows that just 10% of members of the public perceive that cities are improving, 48% see them as getting worse and 37% detect no change. The poll was conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
Does it matter much whether anyone sees anything good about cities?
One national figure quoted in the newsletter noted that "America simply cannot be strong, cannot be a global leader, if we leave our nation's cities behind." A CNP executive said that "if everybody goes on thinking that nothing works and cities are hopeless, then we won't build on the foundation that's been laid. That would be a tragedy for this country."
And, to bring the matter closer to home, the more people tend to think of cities as disaster areas, the less they will be served by the food industry and the greater will be the opportunity missed by the food industry.
The real point here is that urban centers are becoming increasingly hospitable to business enterprises of various sorts and none are more needed than food retailing and few styles of retailing offer the profitability.
Many companies have seen the profit picture and have discovered that money is available to support urban retailing. In recent weeks, to cite a single example, Pathmark broke ground for a supermarket in Harlem that was funded in part by an LISC loan, among funds from many other sources. (SN, Sept. 1.)
LISC officials have plans to be involved in a dozen or more supermarket projects in the next two years that will be in under-served urban neighborhoods.
