Is COVID-19 Causing More Business Closures in Poor and Minority Neighborhoods?

Abstract

We are starting to understand the magnitude of economic damage from the COVID-19 pandemic. Current estimates cover the national or state level, but tell us little about how massive business closures may be affecting urban vitality at the intrametropolitan level. A particular concern is whether urban areas with high poor or minority populations are more deeply affected. This paper combines InfoGroup Historic Business Data and Google Map API to analyze business closures at the neighborhood level in Franklin County, Ohio, encompassing the Columbus Metropolitan Area. As expected, retail and restaurant sectors had the highest number of closures, but closure rates were higher in other sectors. Descriptive and multivariate analyzes reveal that downtown Columbus has been severely affected, but no disadvantaging effect for communities of color or neighborhoods with concentrations of poor residents is found to be statistically significant.