Visiting Heidi's parents is always an opportunity to break out of the cultural bubble we live in. For example, here in Buffalo, the economic dynamic is much different than it is in the affluent, densely populated community where we live, right outside Washington D.C. and economics drives politics.
For one thing, the many national chains that have been sprouting up in the 20 years I've been visiting regularly are still matched by plenty of well-established, local businesses and restaurants that succeed because they have a loyal customer base, and they reliably deliver quality goods, just as they have for years. Another difference is the much higher proportion of blue collar workers and tradesfolk to office workers. Finally, there are many shoppers and tourists who visit the area from Canada, and their spending lifts the economy.
As I've mentioned before, Heidi and her mom are inveterate shoppers, and until the last year and change of COVID, no visit between the two was complete without at least one shopping day. Now that the crisis has been mostly managed, this afternoon we headed up to an outlet mall in Niagara Falls.
Wow... The place was a ghost town and more than half of the stores were closed-- completely out of business. Those shops that remained open had pretty limited inventory; even Heidi and her mom were hard pressed to find anything they wanted. In our community, only a handful of businesses went under during the pandemic, and it was hard to relate to the reports of economic hardship in other areas of the country, but today I saw an example, first hand. The mall will probably recover, but with the Canadian border still closed, and many local workers still saving to recoup lost wages, it could take a while.
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