America's mayors are right to support small business

I’ve been pretty critical of Zohran Mamdani’s ideas for New York City. His plan to make buses free would degrade the quality of public transit and make it both less useful and less popular. His idea to open government-run grocery stores would just fail outright. His rent control plan would at least partially undermine his housing plans, while his proposed tax increases would probably accelerate the exodus of New York’s crucial finance industry.

But at least one of Zohran’s ideas is excellent: His support for small business. In a recent video, he promised to make it “faster, easier, and cheaper” for small retail businesses to open in NYC, to cut fines and fees for these businesses by 50%, to accelerate permits and applications, to slash regulations, to have government workers who help small businesses navigate government requirements, and to increase funding for small business support programs by 500%. Many of these ideas are listed on Mamdani’s website.

Mamdani’s push to support small business is part of a larger overall theme within America’s revitalized socialist movement, and within modern progressivism in general — a deep suspicion of big corporations and an instinctive support for mom & pops. It’s not just movement progressives, either. Daniel Lurie, San Francisco’s mayor, is widely regarded as a centrist, and yet he has made support for small retail businesses a keystone of his approach to urban revitalization:

Mayor Daniel Lurie today signed five ordinances from his PermitSF legislative package, driving the city’s economic recovery by making major structural changes that will help small business owners and property owners secure the permits they need more easily and efficiently. Reforms include common-sense measures to support small businesses through the permitting process, boost the city’s nightlife businesses, help families maintain their homes, and increase flexibility to support businesses downtown.

And here’s what he tweeted back in May:

No more permits for sidewalk tables and chairs—putting $2,500 back in the pockets of small businesses and saving them valuable time…No more permits and fees to put your business name in your store window or paint it on your storefront…No more trips to the Permit Center to have candles on your restaurant’s table…No more rigid rules about what your security gate must look like so businesses have more options to secure their storefronts…No more long waits or costly reviews for straightforward improvements to your home, like replacing a