Retail market: Been there, done that.

Anyone who lives in New York can see that retail is not simply about the status quo. The constantly changing landscape welcomes theme restaurants like the All-Star Cafe or Motown Cafe one moment, and closes them down for lack of interest the next. What plays out of town at the Mall of the Americas for example, may fall flat on its face in New York. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that New Yorkers prefer their own bagels to Einstein's, enjoy local restaurants with character, and going to out of the way places to shop. And at the same time, don't expect the rest of America to embrace our idiosyncrasies.

Okay, so we know the Internet and its array of e-tailers won't destroy retail, at least not in this half of the century. Actually, things seem to be the other way around. The retail experience is so supreme that it can't be duplicated. Yes, you can log on-line and purchase books, clothes etc, but you can't capture the experience of touching and seeing the objects you want or the instant gratification of walking away with what you have purchased be it a meal in a restaurant, a picture in a movie theater or exercising in a health club.

You can go down to SoHo and see change for yourself. Longstanding home furnishings retailers like Zona and Ad Hoc move because of rising rents, ironically in an area they helped popularize. Uptown tenants like Emporio Armani and Coach prepare to open downtown flagships the way they sought out Madison Avenue retail space in the 1980's. At the same time, some SoHo originals like Comme Des Garcons decide its time to move out of the neighborhood altogether.

Part of what makes the retail soap opera so compelling is that New Yorkers are fickle and love to embrace change and try new things. How many chocolate chip cookies, croissants, or muffins can one consume before developing a taste for another kind of treat? Just when coffee seemed a pretty generic commodity, Starbuck's reinvented the experience and has emerged a brand as ubiquitous as McDonald's. New Yorkers might still be waiting in line there for the next couple of years, but chances are Starbucks will have to alter its formula sooner than they think. In the 1960's, who would have anticipated Chock Full O' Nuts disappearing from Manhattan. What looks current today can get stale very quickly or be deemed out of favor tomorrow because New Yorkers seem to thrive on change.

In the 1990's, so-called "category killers" were going to swallow up local retailers by offering something everyone wants -- larger selections. Many did, but plenty of smaller locals like Gracious Home and Simon's Hardware survived and expanded. Shoppers like reasonable prices and large selections but they can get both with service at a local institution like Paragon's Sporting Goods. At the same time, some of their larger competition, Sneaker Stadium, Herman's and Just For Feet, went out of business.

Baby boomers are impatient about everything except aging. Their preoccupation with health, fitness and looking good will continue to absorb them while the ranks of retailers and service providers catering to them will grow. New clothes from Club Monaco or J. Crew won't be enough to convey a youthful appearance unless you take care of the yellow teeth, varicose veins and deep furrows in the forehead. Day spas will continue their popularity while teeth whitening centers will be this year's answer to laser eye surgery centers. Forget backrubs -- been there, done that. And why have a doubtful expression on your face, when you can follow a work-out at Equinox with a shot of botox from an on-site dermatologist?

New Yorkers' lives don't seem to be getting less complicated anytime soon so anything that makes life more manageable will be in demand. The 90's may have produced an overabundance of filofaxes but it remains to be seen how long the Palm Pilot will stay a necessity in the 00's. Still, there will always be plenty of room for more personal forms of communication, hence Papyrus, Hallmark and many small card stores will still be in business.