The Death And Rebirth of the American Mall

Smithsonian ^ | 11/24/14 | Natasha Geiling and Esri

[DallasBiff]

Malls are dying—but a dead mall gives a community the chance to rebuild something that might have been doomed to begin with.

For countless Americans—especially those who came of age in the postwar years—malls were the new town square: a place to shop, eat, gather and meander. Envisioned as perfectly pristine, cast against the gritty danger of urban centers, the American mall became the image of suburban consumerism, the "pyramids to the boom years," as Joan Didion once wrote. But like the pyramids, the culture that the malls once honored—and survived off of—is starting to vanish. In 2014, traditional retailers will, for the first time, generate half of their sales growth from the web. For the American mall mogul, the reality is clear: rethink what it means to be a mall, or die.

[windcliff]

Ping

[Organic Panic]

Melanated teens ruined malls.

As a kid I loved going to the mall. There wasn’t one for hundreds of miles but when we would visit family in the big city they were always fun. The last time I went to a mall was early 2000s when I needed a new shirt for a wedding. It was absolutely disgusting.