In Towns Already Hit by Factory Closings, a New Casualty: Retail Jobs
As the article points out the retail job crush is <i>exactly</i> because the Factorys closed, nothing more magical than there is less GDP so there is less work. Previously those factory workers bought things at the store, but now that the factory is closed they can&#x27;t (or they cut back) and the stores don&#x27;t have some magical source of &#x27;outside of market&#x27; money.<p>They call this out in a couple of places but they never seem to completely connect the dots, there is <i>&quot;He renovated the first floor to attract customers from farther away, customers who might have more money to spend and more places to go than Johnstown.&quot;</i> to pull money from towns further away, or <i>&quot;But fewer people can afford his products now that the good jobs are long gone, and Mr. Apryle has had to make adjustments.&quot;</i><p>It&#x27;s not Amazon, its not &#x27;big box&#x27; chains, its that the city no longer has a production base and so the fraction of GDP this space used to produce has gone away.