04 — Beta
Who gets hit when the city has a bad year.
When the whole city has a bad year, some places get hit much harder than others. Each neighborhood and type of place gets a score called beta (borrowed from finance). A beta of 1 means its closures rise and fall in step with the city’s. Above 1, bad years hit it harder: at 1.8, when the city’s closure rate jumps, its jumps about 80% more. Below 1, it barely notices. Because 2020 was by far the worst year, beta is mostly a ranking of who 2020 hit hardest.
Citywide closure rate, share of open places closing each year
Hit hardest: Ridgewood, Chinatown and Financial District. Steadiest: Astoria (Central), Sunnyside and Carroll Gardens. Among kinds of place, Deli & sandwiches, Café and American swing hardest, while Italian, Middle Eastern and Mexican hold steadiest.
Closure dates are good to about a season, and 2018–19 closures partly land in 2020. Read beta as a ranking.
GroupSteadier · 1 · harderBetaNormal yrs2019–21
Ridgewood
1.77
Chinatown-Two Bridges
1.69
Financial District-Battery Park City
1.57
Tribeca-Civic Center
1.53
Sunset Park (Central)
1.52
West Village
1.51
Bedford-Stuyvesant (West)
1.45
East Midtown-Turtle Bay
1.42
Williamsburg
1.41
Midtown South-Flatiron-Union Square
1.41
Flushing-Willets Point
1.38
Sunset Park (West)
1.33
SoHo-Little Italy-Hudson Square
1.31
South Ozone Park
1.30
Crown Heights (North)
1.20
The bar grows right of the line for groups hit harder than the city in bad years (red) and left for steadier ones (green). Normal yrs: how much more (+) or less (−) often places close here in an ordinary year than across the city, in percentage points. 2019–21: the extra closures in the COVID years.