Wow just visited in 2022 for work and somehow it’s even worse now.

sad to see

I would argue this is not as much an e-commerce victory but a greed issue by large property owners (large insurance companies etc.).

We see a similar thing here in Switzerland (although less) in city centers like Zürich. There have been too many large multinationals willing to pay insane premiums to have a store on the "Bahnhofstrasse" pushing out all the little stores except the ones that own their own properties. When one of those multinationals leaves or goes under the property is left empty in hopes of finding a new sucker to pay overpriced premiums.

Other areas and even the second largest city in Kanton Zürich don't have these issues.

Massive wealth inequality bubble bursting from the bottom up?

And the negative loop starts kicking in. What will be the reason to do a visit to those places that do not have any store or café opened to socialise. Without people, what will be the reason to open a business there? And so on...

This will surely be a nuanced and thoughtful forum discussion.

Counterpoint: I was there last week for Databricks Summit and everything was open? Seemed to be teeming with cops, private security, janitorial, and "ambassadors" which were something between docents and spies.

So it is possible to provide a safe and prosperous environment, it just requires 20,000 strangers descending on your downtown at the same time.

I have no idea what either of these prove.