Here's how gyms, salons and ice cream are changing America's Main Streets
By Tom Beckwith ·
The story coming out of downtown Ridgewood, New Jersey—a postcard commuter suburb whose Main Streets were once defined by boutique goods—is not a quaint anecdote about ice cream…
The End of the American Goods Economy?
The story coming out of downtown Ridgewood, New Jersey—a postcard commuter suburb whose Main Streets were once defined by boutique goods—is not a quaint anecdote about ice cream shops; it is evidence of a profound structural shift in the American economy. What we are witnessing is the irreversible retreat of physical commerce as we understood it. The data from CoStar, reported across outlets like NPR and houstonpublicmedia.org, confirms that last year marked the first time the majority of U.S. retail space was leased to tenants selling services rather than goods. This isn't a cyclical downturn; this is an economic migration driven by consumer behavior: people are spending their money on experiences—a Pilates class, a haircut, a dessert shop visit—because they cannot "stroll Amazon," as Joan Groome dryly observed. The professional consensus, articulated by John Mercer, that consumers have switched a lot of spending from retail goods to services in terms of share of wallet, is simply the observation of gravity at work.
When Necessity Replaces Commerce
The mechanics are clear: online shopping gutted the necessity for traditional brick-and-mortar product sales. The vacuum left by struggling retailers—the stores selling things—is being filled by service providers who cannot be replicated through a screen. Downtown Ridgewood, with its influx of 11 barbershops and dozens of medical spas, exemplifies this substitution. David Logan, the bookstore manager at Bookends, noted that new neighbors, like a bakery, bring him more business because people are coming in for an experience—to go to the restaurant or the salon—and seeing the open door is enough to pull them past his window. This pattern of localized economic reorganization has happened before. It mirrors the Great Migration: when fundamental demographic and economic forces shift a population center, the commercial landscape must reorganize its offerings entirely to support the new reality.
The Illusion of Choice
The immediate reaction from some, like Gina Jeon, is one of uncertainty—whether this change "enriches the value" or diminishes it. This focus on aesthetic preservation misses the point. What matters is capability and sustained demand. While Kate Ulrich suggests that the proliferation of services makes walking around a form of entertainment, I see only the functional replacement of capital goods with human time. The underlying force isn't consumer whim; it’s the failure of the American logistical model to sustain physical retail in the face of global digital efficiency.
This shift is not merely about where people spend their disposable income; it speaks to a national capacity for localized, service-based resilience that far outstrips the infrastructure built for 20th-century department stores. The nation’s commercial centers are adapting by prioritizing human interaction and immediate utility over mere inventory display. This structural pivot confirms that American economic power is moving away from mass production and toward highly personalized, local services—a trend that requires a complete retooling of everything from zoning law to labor policy.