My city tells the future. It isn't looking good.

[Dien Rice]

Hi Gordon,

Sorry for my slow reply, I have a sick wife and kid (they'll be fine), but it means I get a little "bogged down" with extra duties!

I think part of the problem is that Trump is too unpredictable... How can you plan when you don't know what the future holds? I see he imposed 20% tariffs on the European Union on "Liberation Day", then they came down to 10%, and now he's threatening to raise tariffs on the EU to 50%... Nobody can plan for the future with this kind of crazy volatility...

With so much unpredictability, I think a lot of people are choosing to "wait it out"... Which makes sense, if your business depends on any kind of imports or exports. Which is more than you may think...

For example, your cafe down the street is dependent on the importation of coffee beans. (Apart from a relatively small amount of coffee grown in Hawaii - about one-twentieth of one percent of the world's coffee production - coffee is not grown in the USA... Coffee needs a tropical climate...)

With all this unpredictability, I think a lot of people will "wait and see" - especially with businesses that rely on imports or exports...

!!!

Dien

Originally Posted by GordonJ

Ah. The downtown boom in Cuyahoga Falls, OH has gone bust. Or almost. You will find posts from 5-7 years ago here of me detailing all the new shops and new downtown resurgence of my little city. Millions were spent renovating and getting it ready. And it BOOMED.

The last few years have seen several new shops, restaurants, and businesses opening downtown. My thoughts were then; they are going a bit too upscale for my taste. Alas.

In the last few months, we have seen major CLOSINGS of businesses downtown. A popular local brewery/restaurant has shuttered. Two restaurants have gone, and I suspect a couple of more are about to go too.

Now this might have happened no matter what, I said a few years ago, few of these people knew how to keep a business going...so blame the Entrepreneur for biting off more than she could chew.

Some, however, are due to the uncertain economy and the even more uncertain future economy...as we see signs of people withdrawing from some activities, like going out to eat, or amusements/entertainments.

We are a microcosm of America, split about 50/50 left and right, had a republican for years and democrat for years as mayors. City has done OK under almost all admins.

Anyhow, just walking around this past weekend, the city is whispering to me to buckle up, we may have had the best of times in recent years, but the party may be over. The good news is we have a new donut shop opening up downtown, so it will be easy to find a cop when you need one.

Gordon