New York City has changed and small businesses have suffered

Take a walk around the streets of Manhattan and you’ll notice something: there seems to be fewer small businesses around than ever before. Most of the storefronts that were for decades occupied by small-time merchants – assemblers, dressmakers and jewelers – are now taken up by nationally known brands such as Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Pret a Manger, Walgreens and other big companies. “Psychologists and neuroscientists who study the streets have shown that the monotony of chain stores makes people depressed,” said Jeremiah Moss a licensed clinical social worker psychoanalyst and small-business person. “Senior citizens age faster when they live on blocks with chains instead of small businesses. A diversity of stable mom and pops both improves and extends our lives. But that diversity is being destroyed by unregulated greed. The city’s small business crisis could also be considered a public health crisis.”