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Article: Runway illusions in the fashion biz.(NEWS)
- Article from:
- Crain's New York Business
- Article date:
- September 28, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Crain Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Greg David
Factory work now accounts for only two in every 100 jobs in New York City. Barely more than 20,000 people make clothes in the city, about the same number that work in the gambling industry. Yet the myth that manufacturing is important to the city is so embedded in the public mind that it has distorted public policy repeatedly over the past two decades.
Nowhere is that clearer than in the question of what to do about the languishing garment district, which once again occupies City Hall.
This history lesson begins in the early 1990s. Worried that rising real estate prices were forcing factories to leave the garment center, the ...