Coronavirus and Main Street

There has been lots written about the new coronavirus, COVID19, which causes respiratory illness, and there will be lots more.  And lots about Wall Street, where stocks tumbled in fears of what a possible pandemic would do to the economy.  But, as Gary Nesta Pine sings, "Mr. Wall Street, do you care about the Main Street?"

The Atlantic published the first article on the topic that I've read.  It lays out the situation that will be faced by many of us Main Streeters.  In fact, a huge proportion of the American working people lack the three things you need to be easy in this epidemic: sick days, an understanding employer (even maybe the ability to work from home), and health insurance.

A blog post by British economist Simon Wren-Lewis about the economic effects of pandemics notes:

But economics can also influence health outcomes, and not just in terms of NHS resources. For a minority of self employed workers there will be no sick-pay and those without a financial cushion will be put under stress. One of the concerns as far as the spread of the pandemic is concerned is that workers will not be able to afford to self-isolate if they have the disease. So if I was in government I would be thinking of setting up something like a sick-leave fund that such workers could apply to if they get coronavirus symptoms. 

The government also needs to think about keeping public services and utilities running when workers in those services start falling ill. In fact there are a whole host of things the government should now be doing to prepare for a pandemic. It is at times like these that we really need governments to act fast and think ahead. Do we in the UK, and US citizens, have confidence that the government will do what is required? One lesson of coronavirus may be never put into power politicians that have a habit of ignoring experts. (emphasis added)

This reminded me of getting breakfast two days ago in the working class diner on Main Street, West Orange.  It was full of people having a nice Sunday brunch with their kids.  My waitress was attentive, but her nose was running the whole time, and she was not washing her hands in between sniffs.  She looked miserable and probably would have liked to be home, watching TV and taking cough medicine.  If the coronavirus hits our area, there will lots of people working and sniffing because they don't have a choice.  

We do have a choice: we can follow Wren-Lewis' advice to "never put into power politicians that have a habit of ignoring experts."  We can follow Reverend William Barber's advice and fight for policies that protect the poor.  And we can follow my advice: Care about Main Street.

Main Street, Wall Street: Occupy for Root Shock

In the years that I've been strolling Main Streets, I've watched the recession hit and it's been a hard hit. In the common parlance, Main Street is the antonym of Wall Street, both as places and as sets of people. With the recession and the concentration of wealth, Main Street has gotten poorer and Wall Street has gotten obscenely richer. This has shaken Main Street's way of life. Foreclosures have taken people's homes, unemployment has left them with no money to spend for food, shelter or clothes, and the hostility of the right has left them -- us -- with no hope of a safety net in times of troubles. Eric Fullilove, an economist and planner, described this as "root shock," using the term I coined to describe the painful disorientation and confusion people experience after the destruction of their neighborhoods. I studied root shock in cities that had undertaken urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. People whose neighborhoods had been bulldozed still suffered from the pain of that loss. They told me about losing not only their homes, but also their social networks, political organizations, friendships, even close ties to family were disrupted. As I describe in my book, Root Shock, the costs of root shock were astronomical, and they had not been remediated. Eric's assertion that the current economic dislocations are causing root shock offered me a new way to look at the impromptu demonstrations going on now and spreading all over the world. In New York they have the title "Occupy Wall Street." Demonstrators in other cities have attached their city name to "Occupy." While it might seem that the "occupy" is simply indicating that the demonstrators plan to go and stay for a while, I think that the "occupy" can be interpreted as a definitive cure for the root shock we are all suffering. The cause of root shock is the loss of all or part of one's emotional ecosystem. The cure: to get settled in a new place. What better place for uprooted Main Street to seek new roots than Wall Street?