Business

Mid-size and large Philadelphia businesses have become significantly more financially stable since pandemic-driven shutdowns began last year, according to a new report.

• But small businesses have only seen marginal improvements.

Driving the news: Pew Charitable Trusts on Wednesday released its snapshot of how businesses are faring since March 2020.

• The research suggests health care and social assistance businesses — the city's largest job sector — saw top gains in average financial stability, while hospitality businesses, like restaurants and hotels, showed higher risks of failing over the next year.
• Meanwhile, women-led and women-owned businesses had lower financial stability scores on average compared to those led and owned by men, the report found.

Kurt Evans already has an impressive list of titles: chef, restaurateur, activist and educator.

• Now, he's turning his focus to creating a pipeline of new culinary experts among formerly incarcerated people in Philadelphia.

Why it matters: Roughly 27% of formerly incarcerated people living in the U.S. are unemployed, according to the latest figures from the Prison Policy Institute. That rate has likely become worse since the pandemic.

• Black people are vastly overrepresented in U.S. prisons.

A container village is coming to a vacant lot in West Philly.

What's happening: The city is in the early stages of planning a farmers market-style mall of shipping containers at the corner of N 49th Street and Parkside Avenue, city officials told Mike on Monday.

Why it matters: The neighborhood has suffered from disinvestment, poverty and a lack of available retail space for small businesses.

Cofounders Tayyib Smith and Meegan Denenberg gave the public a first look Saturday at their Kensington co-working space, the IF Lab, which is designed to provide resources for people of color pursuing entrepreneurship.

Why it matters: Black Philadelphians make up 43.6% of the city’s population but only represent a little over a quarter of business owners.

• When looking only at businesses that have employees, that figure plummets to about 6.3%.

The storm-damaged Manayunk Canal Towpath will reopen in the coming weeks.

Driving the news: Mayor Jim Kenney's administration is finishing up $300,000-$350,000 in repairs to the 2-mile stretch of the Schuylkill River Trail, Maita Soukup, a spokesperson for the city's Parks & Recreation Department, tells Axios.

Why it matters: The towpath's closure following Hurricane Ida last month has hurt Manayunk businesses that rely on its daily foot traffic, Gwen McCauley, executive director of the Manayunk Development Corporation, said.

• "It's essential. It is not an amenity," she said.