Mayoral permitting as urban revitalization

City executives are turning streamlined permitting, fee cuts, and navigator programs into an explicit small‑business recovery strategy: accelerate approvals, halve fines and fees for micro‑retail, and publish departmental timelines so mom‑and‑pop shops can open cheaply and quickly. Early adopters include San Francisco’s PermitSF package and public pledges in New York to cut storefront regulatory friction. — If scaled, municipal permitting reform becomes a durable lever for economic recovery, reshaping debates over downtown revival, small‑business policy, and progressive urban governance.