Posted on 12/24/2023 10:56:14 AM PST by DallasBiff
Shuttered stores at Schuylkill Mall in Pennsylvania in 2017.
By the 1980s, the mall had become the center of American social life and accounted for the bulk of all retail sales.
But a shrinking middle class, the rise of online shopping, and the fact that there were simply too many malls contributed to the decline of the American mall.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
The mall in my hometown threatened the local news media with a advertising blackout if they reported any crimes at the mall. There was crime but we weren’t allowed to hear about it. My Sunday School (high school) kids would talk about the shootings there from the night before.
most of the patrons in the germany mall picture... appear to be white europeans
The Woolworths went from town locations as a stand alone, to inside the shopping malls. You could buy a M1 Garand, a puppy, and an Orange Julius for under $75. Then go spend an hour in the record store, get a haircut, get something engraved, and catch the 10:00 showing of Jaws (for the 5th time)
Europe does have a long tradition of malls going back before the automobile. It helps if the malls are near where people live and work and they don’t have to drive and park, but will these malls still be going strong ten or twenty years from now?
Woolworth still operates abroad, outside the states. Big in Australia I think.
Good teamwork!
That sounds like a scene from a movie like Ferris Bueller or 16 Candles.
“I would kill to live in a mall conversion to open space living.”
There are a few risks there.
—Security must be airtight—end to end including parking areas—24/7. Zero tolerance for even petty and nuisance crimes—including shoplifting—and fanatical enforcement of trespassing/loitering rules.
—Condo association fees—they go up if vacancies go up—significant financial risk.
—Condo association management—a few Karens and you may wish you lived elsewhere.
The Aussies stole the name, got away with it and were much smarter and more active in spotting and applying the new trends in marketing. Woolworth’s British division has gone out of business, but the German division spun itself off and is doing alright. The original Woolworth’s company lives on as Foot Locker (of all things).
Ok. Fair points all. But maybe Heaven has a mall option on the celestial shuttle bus?
“A catalog and the US Mail did the same thing to every tn in the early 1900’s until post WWII. Every town had a Woolworths or general mercantile. Sears killed them off.”
Our hometown had all of the stores up to about 2+ decades ago. Wards was one of the first go and end up with basically a mail order place for a few years.
Woolworth was the last as they moved from a high rent area. Then Sears got smaller and so did the local Kmart.
The, Kmart closed and brought in a Walmart, and a new Home Depot helped to close down the remaining stores. Sears became a small catalog only store.
The mayor at that time was shown the sales taxes paid by our city’s shoppers at Homedepot, Walmart and the chain drug stores without a store here.
So he and the city council allowed/brought in the big name stores and the sales taxes.
He felt like he had bought a couple of decades for the new and old stores.
With significant cost items, I check via computer online re the prices of the big box stores, here versus Amazon or the Army/Navy exchange. Amazon’s free delivery and low prices usually win. Sometimes, on my Chromebook, Amazon has in the upper right corner the price on the items. we need or want to buy while on line with Walmart or Target.
You would seriously want to live in a development 50% “upscale” and 50% welfare/shelter population?
Y’all are dancing around this fact, we are being held hostage by less than 13% of the population!
Y’all are idiots! No wonder the rest of the world laughs at you. I live here and I refuse to comply or go along with your BS!
Don’t count on my help. I drink a beer and watch you bleed to death.
That was just our ordinary daily life together, there is a reason that when I read how old Randy Quaid is and that he lived in a part of Houston that I used to frequent, my reaction was instantly that we must have known each other, there was no way that two such personalities hadn’t run into each other.
After I read that, the next time I talked to my younger step-brother who remembers the parts of my life that took place in Houston, he said that I did know Randy Quaid and in fact well enough that my step-brother had a small relationship with him in more civilized later years, like going to dinner together.
The Gateway Mall in Prescott AZ was purchased by a business group and they seem to be making an effort to buck the mall fall trend. The only major stores that have closed are Sears and Bed, Bath, and Beyond (no surprise there).
“held hostage by less than 13% of the population”
No buses in the exurbs in our area—and no problems—amazing how that works.
No pork? No Christianity? No booze??
No scharia polizei.
Not only did Jeff Bezos of Amazon doom of the malls he killed almost every small business in smaller cities I’ve seen some that look like there almost ghost towns.
Can’t stand Amazon over priced and long time for returns if it isn’t in front of you don’t buy it that’s what stores are for.
In those days, about the only somewhat decent power tools you could find were at Sears.
Living in a small town area, what seems to be killing our mall is that half the stores are closed a good part of the time, many are selling the same things essentially;no diversity, Amazon is taking away a lot the business naturally partly because of the first two things I mentioned, & the parking lot is full of holes.
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