What are the actual rates of confirmed stores closing? What were they in previous decades? What are other factors -- a pandemic hurting downtown traffic, for example -- that might affect those closures? Can we compare the rates of restaurants closing to the rates of retail stores closing across the years to see if retail stores are closing at a higher rate than restaurants?

And to be clear, I don't see either side of the debate doing that research. I'm not pointing fingers. I'm just saying we should follow the data.