As a small business owner myself who *wants* to open up another business where I live in Chinatown, your proposal above would absolutely be the key to get me to jump into the deep end again. It took us about 18 months to open a four chair nail salon because of just zero coordination between the relevant DC departments along with zero accurate communication to help us manage expectations with our landlord, our vendors, our long-time customers, etc. As both COVID and DOGE showed us, there is no long-term resilient DC future without a period of being obsessed with diversifying our major employers and commercial lessors. The boom of the 2010s - while awesome - was also, as we came to see, extremely fragile and dependent upon the federal government. We can't afford to make the same mistake again.
This article is a must read for every politician and Main Street Manager. One thing it missed though is the support that Main Streets and government do provide.
As a small business owner myself who *wants* to open up another business where I live in Chinatown, your proposal above would absolutely be the key to get me to jump into the deep end again. It took us about 18 months to open a four chair nail salon because of just zero coordination between the relevant DC departments along with zero accurate communication to help us manage expectations with our landlord, our vendors, our long-time customers, etc. As both COVID and DOGE showed us, there is no long-term resilient DC future without a period of being obsessed with diversifying our major employers and commercial lessors. The boom of the 2010s - while awesome - was also, as we came to see, extremely fragile and dependent upon the federal government. We can't afford to make the same mistake again.
I would love to see Rini as the next head of DMPED.
This article is a must read for every politician and Main Street Manager. One thing it missed though is the support that Main Streets and government do provide.