Saving Old Street: the Death and Life of American Small and Micro Enterprises
by Gary Rivlin
About This Novel
The story of small and micro businesses has always been one of struggle to survive. Technological progress, changes in taste, market transformation, and the emergence of new competitors will frequently put small and micro enterprises into trouble. In recent decades, it has become increasingly difficult for small and micro enterprises to survive. In the United States, one-third of small and micro businesses do not survive more than two years; half fail within five years of opening; and less than one-third can survive ten years. Floods, hurricanes, fires, supply chain disruptions, discrimination by banks, especially against women and people of color: it's a miracle that any small business survives. In 2020, the Brookings Institution declared the COVID-19 epidemic to be "the greatest existential threat facing small and micro businesses in the United States." Some predict that one in four small businesses will permanently close due to the pandemic. Others put the figure at one-third or higher. In nearly every survey conducted in spring 2020, more than half of local businesses said they were at risk of closing. Everyone agrees that small businesses are critical to the health of the economy, and job growth in the United States is driven almost entirely by small businesses. However, as the smallest government agency in the United States, the Small Business Administration's annual budget is less than the Department of Defense spends in a day. In August 2020, amid the raging epidemic, Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Rivlin hit the road again and interviewed more than 200 subjects and more than 60 small and micro business owners. Originally, he was worried that he would witness and record a large-scale collapse of small and micro enterprises. However, he did not expect that he discovered so many unexpected, interesting and even exciting stories.
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