The die-off of small businesses
Tme to just say it: the empty storefronts and “for lease” signs are finally creeping me out. Something in the last month or so clicked, and I’ve starting to really feel the loss of local businesses to this Great Recession. These lost businesses are, in some cases, a decade old or more. And they are not coming back.
Because of Nine Rubies, we get an up-front view of this phenomenon. There used to be 19 yarn stores between San Jose and San Francisco. Five have closed in the past year. In some sense, it’s good for Saloni and Sudha to be the default Burlingame yarn store, San Carlos yarn store, as well as the surviving San Mateo yarn store. But five mom-and-pop shops closed. Those knitting store owners were in many cases people that Saloni has known since she started. (The knitting world is so local that they even have an acronym for Local Yarn Store.)
Small business was always “red in tooth and claw,” I suppose. But this recession is putting the cruelty on display, and we all are starting to feel it.
