Amazing! Even Harvard is being hit by the downtown turn. If you had not shown the pictures ... I would have found it hard to believe that a place with so much wealth and so much traffic had become a commercial ghost town.

i find it so interesting that he's all caught up in the fact that this is happening in the wealthy areas. imagine how this recession is affecting the poorest areas?! HELLO!

I've noticed this same thing as I wander the Natick Mall with my 15 year old daughter. I take my camera next trip.

Before the bust, I began planning a small business venture, but I'm waiting.

There doesn't seem to be anything in the government stimulus package for small businesses. Wouldn't offering some help to small business owners make sense?

My son in his last semester as an architecture grad student at Harvard. I've visited 2X's, the latest last June. Vacancies weren't that remarkable then. It's so scary, especially your comments about small business as the backbone of America. Again, who got all that bailout money? Where are all these young (to old) over achievers going to put all their efforts if they can't participate in the American market system?

I'm bothered by Freeman's piece because I'm familiar with the spaces he's 'appalled' by. Many of the empty stores he showed are currently filled; many were always empty because of the nature of the building or landlord; many are closed because the businesses were ill concieved or as in the case of korean video store, obsolete. Perhaps the economist should stick to hard statistics non ill informed observations. This is not to say the retail and office real estate occupancy rate has been unaffected by the recession; it is to say his hyperbole is not really reliable information.

I live in Berkeley, which is a much smaller city, but the same thing is happening here: small businesses are closing and nothing is replacing them. Of course, the California budget mess exacerbates the problem. Berkeley's employees are subject to the state-employee "furloughs" (pay cuts).

About a year ago, everyone was saying that Berkeley, and the Bay Area in general, would be "immune" to the effects of the financial crisis. I suspect they said they same thing about Cambridge. Of course, they were wrong.

We're all in this together.

Don't you think it's ironic that no one in the government or corporate America saw this coming? When everyone is making money, no one care. We turn a blind eye to corruption. Congress deregulates, corporations make billions, small businesses struggle to survive. And now the _hit has hit the fan. This is only the beginning of the problems to come. Where did all the uneducated, high school drop-out, druggies and convicts go who were working in the Construction industry? If the well to do are having difficulty in Boston, what is happeneing in real America? This did not start with the Obama administration and it won't end during or after his tenure...

Having worked with major retailers over the past 25 years, I see three major causes for the abandoned store phenomenon.

1) The U.S. is "over-stored". There has long been too much retail square footage for the level of retail spending. I think everyone knew that the next downturn would wash some of that excess out of the marketplace. The consumer shopping reduction has now reduced the amount of retail square footage to a more appropriate level.

2) Miserly Shoppers: Consumers have cut back on retail store spending far more than anyone would have predicted. And their spending reductions are beginning to appear permanent.

3) WWWhere it's at: Online retail has grown substantially since the last retail sales downturn. Every dollar spent online that would have been spent in a retail store reduces the need for retail space.

It will be interesting to see how creative landlords can be at filling the space. Substantial reductions in retail space rents might provide entrepreneurs with the seeds needed for a resurge of growth. I'm not holding my breath, however!

What you are seeing in retail is simply a market correction. In fact, the Harvard area, among the most expensive in Boston, is subject to those factors perhaps more than many. What matters is total occupancy cost, not just rent. In the Harvard area, landlords were spoiled with the "tenant pays for everything" model. That drove up construction costs for tenants, and consequently, debt service together with rent equals an occupancy cost only sustainable in the best of times. Now with landlords more amenable to contributing some infrastructure and reducing rents, total occupancy costs fall in line nicely. Retail sales are only off 10% for most categories. That was enough to push some marginally capitalized operations over the edge. The so-called "second guy in" the new tenant who inherits the infrastructure left behind, gets a tenant allowance contribution from the landlord, and pays reasonable rent, has an entirely different economic model - hence far more profitable on the same sales levels as the predecessor tenant. This is an opportunity to take advantage of a market correction. No - the sky isn't falling. It is just capitalism at work the way it is supposed to work.