Need to use them to create “mental hospitals”...
I have seen abandoned malls but I also see some still thriving. While the mall is in decline, I would argue that only the strongest, and most adaptable, survive.
I think everyone knows why actual shoppers stopped going to most malls. It was the bus stops.
I saw the quick demise of Bannister mall in KCMO due to blacks being bussed in from Truman/Troost area of KCMO.
It was DAYS before first fights, days before gunfire, weeks before violent attacks, and a couple of months until the first of many murders/rapes.
There are two kinds of malls: The malls the white people go to, and the malls the white people used to go to. - Chris Rock
Here in Silicon Valley, many of the towns were built up in the post-war 1950s. Land was cheap and widely available, so the sprawling indoor and outdoor malls sprang up. There were huge parking lots out front and you walked to the single story store buildings. Even in the towns, you’d find big supermarkets with huge parking plazas.
All gone. Everything has gone vertical. The grocery stores have either parking garages, underground parking or parking on street level and the store on the second level. The spaciousness is gone. Where you not long ago had single story commercial buildings set back 50 feet or more from the street, you now have four and five story buildings hard up against the sidewalk. We went from open, livable, breathable spaces to the confinements of Manhattan.
It is awful.
Public bus routes + blacks = destroyed mall
I’ve seen a lot of youtube videos regarding abandoned or virtually abandoned malls.
I lost interest in shopping at malls back at the end of the 20th century. I also became a costco member in 1988, which really started the whole process. I used malls to get walking exercise in the winter and maybe get coffee at one of the coffeeshops. But I stopped buying stuff there a very long time ago. With the internet and amazon now, I don’t understand why people even still use them.
Just to be clear, I stopped using them early on because I saw them as the most expensive place to get stuff. FWIW, I worked at the Bellevue Square mall selling hi-fi and video in the early 80’s before I got into IT. I never bought anything there then either (except coffee).
It seems to me that it's in a pretty substantial state of decline.I want it to survive because of the taxes my town gets and because it's a fantastic place to walk during hot/cold/rainy/snowy weather.
Yes. I recall the first “shopping centers” which were all outdoors, and when they first began to build indoor facilities, like the food court and interior store fronts, it was like a resort sort of place.
Malls can be fun.
But not so much when ferals take them over.
“..viewed as dangerous—often through white shoppers’ perception of nonwhite shoppers….”
No not “shoppers” but FERALS! This clown would rather call innocent people racist than just tell the truth that is right there in front of all of us. Why read anymore of what amounts to drivel? Screw this guy.
Remember when going to the mall was a form of entertainment? Things have really changed.
A bus full of teens
Roosevelt Field eventually became a huge indoor mall with Bloomingdales, Macy's, JC Penny, and every fake-ass mall store you ever heard of or could imagine.
It is a palimpsest of 1960s American thinking not to visualize malls as indoor and parking lot hunting areas where they, their children, and their grandchildren, distracted by glitter and consumption, would become prey.
There was a late 90s, early 00s incident in New Jersey where a man carrying Xmas presents was shot in the head and killed walking to his car. The news coverage breathlessly focused on how it could be possible for this to happen at an "upscale" mall - but it was so close to what we used to call a "bad area" that you could almost walk.
An era has passed. In first grade, Roosevelt Field was where Lucky Lindy took off for Paris and Glory. Watching the runways dug up and the hangars burning, he fit right in with the Wright Brothers and other lessons about our forbearers who created our homeland.
A recent addition, in addition to Neiman Marcus is this:
A bus terminal for ease of access.
You all know what's coming next.
Malls were the beginning of the deaths of our busy down towns in Massachusetts.
Businesses moved to malls and abandoned Main streets and quaint little shops.
I hate seeing them now but hopefully main street areas come back to life.
JMHO.
They can never not introduce race into everything.
See SNL, the Scotch Tape store (long, long ago, when SNL was funny).