{"id":168421,"date":"2026-03-19T18:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168421\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T18:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T18:25:14","slug":"we-say-we-love-small-businesses-so-why-are-the-chains-always-packed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/168421\/","title":{"rendered":"We Say We Love Small Businesses \u2014 So Why are the Chains Always Packed?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"has-grad-6-gradient-background has-background\">The Urban Equation is W42ST\u2019s occasional column from Hell\u2019s Kitchen resident Jeremiah Johnson \u2014 a look at the hidden incentives and everyday contradictions that shape life in New York.<\/p>\n<p>Like a lot of people, I work from home. And like a lot of people, I eat out for lunch most days \u2013 probably more than I should. But I\u2019m not much for delivery. It\u2019s almost always nicer to walk around the neighborhood, get some fresh air and pick up the food myself. It also makes it easy to learn about new restaurants and smaller, locally-owned businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Success! Your account was created and you\u2019re signed in.<br \/>Please visit <a href=\"https:\/\/w42st.com\/my-account\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">My Account<\/a> to verify and manage your account.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/w42st.com\/post\/author\/jeremiah-johnson\/\" rel=\"author nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<img alt=\"Jeremiah Johnson Hell's Kitchen\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/cropped-Jeremiah-Johnson-1641-scaled-1-80x80.jpeg\"  class=\"avatar avatar-80 photo\" height=\"80\" width=\"80\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\/>\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jeremiah Johnson is the director of the Center for New Liberalism, a housing advocate, and a Hell\u2019s Kitchen resident for over 10 years. You can find his regular writing at Infinite Scroll on Substack \u2014 https:\/\/www.infinitescroll.us\/<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a class=\"author-link\" href=\"https:\/\/w42st.com\/post\/author\/jeremiah-johnson\/\" rel=\"author nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\tMore by Jeremiah Johnson\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Urban Equation is W42ST\u2019s occasional column from Hell\u2019s Kitchen resident Jeremiah Johnson \u2014 a look at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-168421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}