Glib as this description of the mayor’s influence over global macroeconomic forces that determine whether Seattle is in full-on growth or recessionary contraction may seem, it also happens to be true — as far as it goes.

Where the mayor and her frenemies on the City Council will wield considerable influence is in the local segment of the economy — that part made up of small and midsize businesses, and the owners and employees of many of those businesses, a group once known as the middle class.

That’s going to be a significant issue to watch in 2018.

For this segment of the population and the business community, an official city policy of neglect would be a welcome improvement. Mandates that larger companies can throw money at or dodge were ladled on top of the usual hassles of operating in an urban environment, making financial life precarious for thin-margin businesses.

The middle class, meanwhile, found itself the target of derision as well as being financially squeezed. Single-family home ownership, once considered a defining element of being middle class and a foundation to stable communities, was instead labeled selfish, wasteful and racist. Businesses and residents who voiced objections were told to live with it, or leave.

Durkan ran as content-free a campaign as possible while still appeasing the two camps she was playing to: the progressives and the establishment. The “supporting and protecting small business” section of her campaign web page’s “affordable Seattle agenda” platform makes noises about ensuring those businesses are “not forgotten or marginalized” while at the same time announcing that everyone’s on board with Seattle’s “progressive values.”

As for specifics, outside of a three-year B&O tax exemption for startups, Durkan’s small-business program is heavy on things to be considered, looked at and explored, as well as that time-honored Northwest favorite for avoiding actual decision-making, the naming of an advisory council.

Not that either small businesses or the middle class want to hear this, but Durkan’s mayoralty won’t survive or fall on how she treats them, or how the economy fares. Civil unrest, crime, snow removal, civic scandal, personal scandal: Those are the issues that can cost a mayor her tenure. Fail on one of those and the “It Has Been (fill in the blank) Days Since Seattle Changed Mayors” meter will have to be reset to zero — again.

Monthly columnist Bill Virgin is the founder and owner of Northwest Newsletter Group, which publishes Washington Manufacturing Alert and Pacific Northwest Rail News.