Where once a mall would have two anchor stores now four seems to be the minimum. The net effect is to make them dependent on those four stores. If any one of them hit a bump for any reason the mall is hurting.
Most people don’t realize how many people’s jobs depend on retail. Our store in KOP (the Gulph Road mall) is 5100 square feet and employs over 40 people full time.
I think this is going to be changing, at least as far as bricks-and-mortar stores for style items like clothing and housewares go. I rarely go to clothing stores anymore, other than thrift stores, because anything I want I can get faster, and often cheaper online. For year's I would go into the department stores at KoP looking for things like mock turtlenecks. They always had plenty of them, but rarely had any in size S -- a few Ms, piles of L and XLs, but often no Ss at all or just a couple in the most hideous color. This literally went on for years, and always the same pattern. I began to wonder what planet their merchandise ordering people were on. Did they NEVER notice that all the S sizes sold out quickly, and tons of the Ls and XLs always ended up as clearance items? I don't even bother looking anymore -- I just order whatever I want online.