Using anonymized credit and debit card data from over 54 million Chase customers across the US, City Observatory recently published a chart showing the percentage of retail sales that goes to “small businesses” in 15 US cities.

This is based on proprietary data (2015) from JPMorgan Chase and is surely not perfect. But it’s still an interesting approximation.

At the top of the list is New York with 36% of all retail sales going to small businesses. And at the bottom of the list – keep in mind that this list only has 15 cities – is Columbus with 23% of retail sales.

One of the overarching findings was that urban centers tend to see 10-15% more retail sales going to small and medium sized businesses compared to the suburbs.

Intuitively, this makes sense to me. Space is a precious commodity in urban centers and that may naturally privilege the small operator. There’s also the question of consumer preference among urbanites.

If you’re interested, you can download the full report from JPMorgan Chase, here.

Using anonymized credit and debit card data from over 54 million Chase customers across the US, City Observatory recently published a chart showing the percentage of retail sales that goes to “small businesses” in 15 US cities.

This is based on proprietary data (2015) from JPMorgan Chase and is surely not perfect. But it’s still an interesting approximation.

At the top of the list is New York with 36% of all retail sales going to small businesses. And at the bottom of the list – keep in mind that this list only has 15 cities – is Columbus with 23% of retail sales.

One of the overarching findings was that urban centers tend to see 10-15% more retail sales going to small and medium sized businesses compared to the suburbs.

Intuitively, this makes sense to me. Space is a precious commodity in urban centers and that may naturally privilege the small operator. There’s also the question of consumer preference among urbanites.

If you’re interested, you can download the full report from JPMorgan Chase, here.