More communist claptrap from Zero Hedge.
A lot of ‘urban planners’ cited in the article.
‘Planners’ usually hat malls and big box stores (I smile when I catch one of our city’s planners in Wal Mart and say ‘hello’...they usually look like a dog that just ate a plate of cookies).
Most failed malls are the result of another mall being built nearby - usually in a ‘better’ area of town. So the failed mall is a symptom of a deteriorating neighborhood - certainly not an indicator that people have tired of malls.
Yes there are some empty stores...in particular the ‘anchor stores’ like Sears and Macy’s are closing at a lot of malls. But the malls aren’t going to suddenly disappear anytime soon.
Typically, the death spiral begins when the riff-raff comes in from the bus stops and starts to cause problems involving the money spending patrons. The people with money to spend, leave to spend it where there is security and a lower population of the troublemaking “ethnics”.
Want to keep your mall going...skip the front door bus stops, and keep the security tight. Enforce the loitering ordinances, supervise the parking areas tightly and take out the trash.
Zero Hedge sells gold futures with fear-mongering.
The internet and Walmart killed the mall. Why wade through a parking lots and crowds to pay twice as much?
Don’t know about that.. There have always been dead and dying malls. I have watched personally malls reinvent themselves to serve higher end markets as demographics changed and watched thriving malls become weekend swap meets etc.
There is little doubt too many malls exist in some regions, middle class is getting squeezed,and social norms are changing. Face it in the 80s the mall was where the kids hung out... Not that some don’t still today but the mall today is not remotely the social hub it was.
I walk through the mall and marvel at how many clothing retailers are there, and how many of them I know from their sec filings are struggling.. It’s not hard to see why. Intense competition for the youthful buyer who’s tastes change significantly every few years. The days of having Ambercombie on your shirt has gone from a status symbol to something to be despised etc etc.
there is little doubt that the malls status is generally falling and without general demographic growth the impact would be even greater than it is in the general fall from grace. They will always be with us but the number of malls per capita is going to shrink
Zerohedge is HARDLY “communist”.
If I had to assign ANY ideology to their site it would probably be ‘Libertarian’, but there really isn’t an overall ideology on the site. (there MAY be a few ‘commie/socialist/liberal’ users that post there)