URBAN RETAIL DESERTS (coming soon to a Democrat city near you)

 

Retail stores exist to make a profit, be it a large corporate store or a small bodega. If you make it increasingly unprofitable, they will go away. Even a non profit co-op can't survive survive (even less so since their cost margins are so narrow). In cities that fail to counter shop lifting and looting, you will end up with large retail deserts. Urban cores where this occurs will not have grocery or retail stores--or they will be so fortified and expensive to be out of reach for those at the lower end of the economic spectrum.  

The Sahara, BTW, was not always a desert.  It was more semi arid savannah until relatively recently. Yes weather patterns change, but dry periods with over grazing and burning accellerated desertfication. A tragedy of the commons. Which is analogous to what rampant shoplifting, theft, and corruption does to an economy. When you stop enforcing individual property rights you get bad results. 

If only Milton Friedman was here. Milton was against the war on drugs. Milton was for recognizing choices have pluses and benefits and recognizng those outcomes. Allowing rampant shoplifting and theft results in very predictable outcomes. It does not make people's lives better.  

Knuckledragging My Life Away: Retailers Lost Billions of Dollars to Shoplifters in 2022, Survey Shows

The View from Lady Lake: The usual suspects are going crazy in the City of 'Brother'-ly Love...

Instapundit: Seattle and Starbucks and Making urban deserts, one looting at a time

AoSHQ: Morning Report 09.27.23

You get what you vote for. #BlueCities https://t.co/AJQcZluHq9

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) September 27, 2023

A Portland antique store owner who has run the business since 1974 says he can no longer take operating in the city following repeat violent robberies. When he calls police after the thieves leave, he says officers don’t come due to the staffing crisis. https://t.co/iA8GQzshGW

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) September 29, 2023