If I could have one thing tomorrow, it would be this: the rent on my shop stays the same for ten years, no matter what district the developers decide to "revitalize." That is autonomy. Right now I make the broth perfectly, I serve it fairly, I pay my staff, I keep my grandmother's name on the sign — and some bureaucrat's nephew can still price me out because the land under my feet got valuable. Real autonomy is not independence from government or the market, it is immunity from the whim of one. My son asks me sometimes why I do not expand, open a second location, make money the way the big chains do. I tell him: one good shop that is yours is better than ten shops that own you. That is what I would ask for — the solid ground beneath my feet to stay solid, so I can keep teaching him how to make the broth instead of teaching him how to manage a corporation.
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