We have been reduced to soviet style art consisting of nostalgic photos of empty shops and crumbling edifices.
I suppose watching America’s decline has a sort of morbid fascination. Like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
We can see it coming, but feel powerless to stop it.
All they have to do is check their pockets dude.
As bad as the economy is, the demise of large shopping malls is actually the result of the changing nature of retail.
First there were catalog sales, then there were big city department stores, then there were suburban malls, now there is a combination of big box stores and online sales.
The article mentioned that many of the malls were in low income areas hard hit by the economy. Once an area decays to the point of being low income, malls close because there aren’t enough local shoppers to support them, and theft rises.
Se la vie.
Friend wife and I were just talking about this phenomenon today. I observed how the atmosphere/ethos/ambiance/clientele of a once-vibrant, “happening” mall changes once the neighborhood where it is situate goes 3rd-world. No one can afford to keep such a place open when the clientele would prefer to be at Dollar General.
What brought it up was that Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall, which has been around for 40 years, just ADDED several stores. There’s a neighborhood that’s not going to go downhill anytime soon. If it ever does, well, “there goes the neighborhood”.
I’d rather go to a rodent petting zoo than a mall, which are usually filled with obnoxious rude people, sickos, gangsters and and assorted mental cases..
Disco haircuts - this mall has everything! - I see the new Oldsmobile is in early this year. Apologies to the Blues Brothers but that was filmed in a mall that was closed years ago - not anything new it seems!
Have they not connected the fact that they don’t carry any thing but cheap, EXPENSIVE chinese tasteless JUNK?
I’m 66, 5 ft 118 lb, Conservative, Christian, You think I’m going to wear clothes that are made for a HOOKER? That is what is in the malls in Memphis. Add in the hispanics/black culture and there is not much I would by.
Unlike the first woman, I have very discriminating taste in clothes.
Laura Bush is more my taste in clothes.
Besides the danger of NO GUNS being allowed.
I don’t like malls, parking was always a problem, too many kids as well.
I shop on the internet and I suspect that has more to do with these malls shut down.
They resemble old train stations, they were replaced with cars.
Never a fan of any type of shopping mall... I prefer an actual store, in a small town.
I don’t really get how that is hauntingly beautiful. Fairly depressing, unless one subscribes to the mindset that Malls are evil, but even then...
Very strange.
I believe Malls usually are what the owners want them to be. If the owners want a tax write off they become such showing loss and get minimal upkeep or promotion. Little is done to promote occupancy of retailers. If an owner wants them to succeed they make some necessary adjustments and promote having certain main attraction stores on site. When you see a mall start leasing out it’s retail space to the local or state government offices it’s demise is close.
bfl
The first two story inside shopping mall in my city was shutdown & bulldozed a while ago. Parents began leaving their unruly teens to roam played a part in its downfall.
Malls have a distinct life cycle. They age and die.
The mall featured in the article is Rolling Acres in Akron, Ohio. It was the mall of my youth. The glass elevator and orange tiled fountain were what I looked forward to as a child.
In the late 80s people started reflecting to it as Strolling Afros. By the mid-90s nobody went there due to violence., which in turn led to closed shops. Sad.
Amazing how fast nature takes over once activity ceases...
A few years ago there was an amazing website that detailed all the abandoned buildings in Detroit that were very ‘high end’ in their day when the economy was great and this was the place to be. Fascinating stuff.
In Florida, when WestShore Plaza opened, it had Maas Brothers, along with Sears and JCPenny. What happened to the local stores?