4th Street As Economic Indicator

The 4.5 mile stretch that is Appian/4th Street route is made up of a fairly diverse array of neighborhoods. From affluent Belmont Shore/Naples Island at the east to the Hispanic working class neighborhood at the west end to the Downtown shopping center and the young gentrified section in the middle, I think it is a pretty good cross section of the city itself.

None of whom are immune from the current economic downturn.

Since this is my regular running route, I was curious to see how the corridor has fared in the 7 months that I have been away. As expected, there were more shuttered stores. The half-finished house on Naples Island remained half-finished. A few more of the trendy cafe places went out of business.

The one encouraging sign, if you might consider it as such, is that there seemed to have been far fewer shuttered businesses in the past 7 months than the 7 months previous. This is only anecdotal and it's optimism by second derivative, but it is better than the alternative.