Personal Observation for 1 27 10-- What's happening to this city?

What’s Wrong With This City?
Maybe I’ve been in New York City too long. Year after year, and lately, month after month, I watch storefronts vanish and reappear. “Under New Management” soon evaporates into the local Bagel Shop becoming a Hardware store. Not soon after, the Hardware store becomes a South American Chicken restaurant. Then, inevitably, the Chicken restaurant becomes one of three things; (1) Vacant with a ‘For Sale’ sign hanging in the window (usually written by hand on a piece of cardboard or printed in a ghastly bland font on a lifeless piece of corporate stationary with the logo of whichever commercial developer has purchased the property from the bank), (2) A Taco bell/ Pizza hut/ KFC OR Dunkin Donuts/ Baskin Robbins Combo open 24 hours a day , or (3) A bank.
With the country’s economy in financial purgatory, one would think that the strain of the corporate grip on the countries throat would be somewhat lessened. Banks have become economic pariahs. Even the ones fortunate enough to be bailed out can’t be turning a profit at this point in time. How on earth can a Bank of America open a new branch within a two block radius of a Washington Mutual, HSBC, Astoria Savings and a TD Ameritrade? As I drive through Queens and Brooklyn, every other block has a bank with a different logo, or an ATM, or a land developer has put up signs on a construction site which indicate another bank is in the process of being built.
Even more astounding than the seemingly omnipotent ability of banks to expand, is the rash of 24 hour fast food store fronts that dot the landscape in all five boroughs. I used to believe that the people who ran corporations performed profitability analyses of the surrounding area before building a new store. Demographics, the need for the particular product or service in the neighborhood and overall location all seem to be important factors that should be weighed prior to investing the necessary time and resources into the opening of a new business ( at least to me). I find it difficult to believe that having no less than eight Dunkin Donuts/ Baskin Robbins and Pizza Hut/ Taco Bells within a two mile radius surrounding my neighborhood in Queens is the result of sound business judgment.
I keep seeing stories on television and in the newspaper about how the Obama administration is putting pressure on banks to lend money to small investors and potential homeowners. In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has offered potential small business owners interest free loans to reinvigorate the city’s economy. My question simply is this; Where the hell are all of these people and have any of them received a cent?
A few months ago I drove my mother to one of my favorite restaurants on Woodhaven Boulevard. It was a family owned and operated Peruvian eatery with the best seafood I have ever eaten and the most beautiful waitresses I had ever laid eyes on. In months and years past I had taken my mother there for her birthday, Mothers Day and for other special occasions. Eager to sink my chops into some ceviche I parked the car around the corner. As we walked toward the restaurant I noticed a yellow awning and sign had replaced the festive red and white that adorned Miguelina’s in the past. Initially, I thought the owners had merely changed the design of the building’s façade. However, as we came closer to the entrance, my heart sunk to my stomach. My beautiful sweet Miguelina’s was now El Pollo Loco; A run of the mill chicken shack with paper table cloths and ugly waitresses wearing too much makeup. As my mother and I turned to leave, I thought to myself; “At least they didn’t turn it into a bank or Dunkin Donuts.” Well, not yet anyway.