In San Francisco last week, the City Planning Commission—responding to neighborhood pressures—rejected an application by American Apparel to open a new store on Valencia Street in the city’s Mission District. No matter that the brand is well known for its social consciousness (and soft porn ads). The bald fact of their 250+ stores was enough to make it an unwelcome “parasitic entity.” Let the storefront be vacant.

I’d normally be tempted to dismiss this as the height of San Francisco foolishness (and it is), but at this moment I’m also in awe of the neighborhood’s guts—especially juxtaposed with New York Magazine’s “Freakoutonomics” package this week, about the impact of the economy on this city’s stores and restaurants. The next few years, if not mere months, are no doubt going to remake New York’s retail landscape. But if this cycle is going to be one of “creative destruction,” then it’s potentially an opportunity to get a do-over with what Adam Greenfield calls the “repeating module of doom”– the Duane Reade/bank/DunkinDonuts rhythm that’s taken over the streetscape, making it a less interesting, less dynamic place.

I don’t mean merely to suggest that we should fight American Apparel. (I live across the street from one. It’s always empty.) But I do have a heightened appreciation for the brazenness of that patch of American city’s belief in its ability to influence its environment. I’ve always thought that part of being a New Yorker was a reverence for the physical manifestation of economic forces. But right now those forces are feeble. New game in the city.

Andrew Blum is a contributing editor at Wired and Metropolis magazines, and a contributing editor at Urban Omnibus. He lives in Brooklyn.

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.