That is EXACTLY the problem, and it tells me we would likely be seeing a lot of store closures even if e-commerce didn't exist.
I've worked with real estate economists who have been warning about this for years. I remember one of them telling me that the U.S. had a fairly consistent ratio of about 10 square feet of retail space per capita from the 1940s until the 1980s, but then retail construction got completely out of hand and this figure got as high as the upper 20s until a few years ago.
The reality we're facing here is that we simply don't need all the retail space that has been constructed in this country over the last 30+ years.
“The reality we’re facing here is that we simply don’t need all the retail space that has been constructed in this country over the last 30+ years. “
Back in the 80s, in California, as aerospace factories were being shutdown (thanks the Neocons think the Cold War was over) and other factories were being shutdown (thanks to the locals figuring the best way to reduce pollution is to simply shut down polluters), there were almost always replaced by “shopping centers”, and it wasn’t like there was a shortage of them to start with.
I always wondered how this was going to work - instead of a facility that generates money by high pay (like a factory), you have a retail mall that sucks in money. Looks as though their Chickens are Coming Home to Roost.