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posted by martyb on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:27PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-need-for-pants dept.

In the 1980's people wrote about malls as cultural centers, as temples to shopping. Now, they're dying.

Many observers are speculating about the growing trend of so-called dead malls: once-flourishing, large retail spaces that now have a high vacancy rate, low numbers of pedestrian traffic, or the lack of an "anchor" store (typically a department chain). Is it because of economic recession, or stagnant middle-class wages and growing income inequality? Or has the death of these malls been hastened by the rapid growth of online shopping?

It's difficult to say, but the dead mall phenomenon is becoming a cultural item of interest -- for retail historians, urban explorers and documentarians alike. We may read about dead malls in The New York Times or The Atlantic, but film footage can say much more than words.

Is Amazon to blame?


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  • (Score: 1) by fyngyrz on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:20PM (2 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @05:20PM (#499408) Journal

    So you can see products in-person

    They typically don't have the products. The inventory of a brick-and-mortar store which is residing on expensive real estate is unlikely to even reach a shadow of what an online system has, where warehousing can be done much more efficiently on cheap-as-possible real estate. Why try to go look at what you aren't likely to find? Even if you just want to put eyeballs on it, you aren't all that likely to be able to for most products, and certainly not for a variety along those lines.

    So you can walk around in a climate-controlled place around other humans

    erm... I truly hope I am never that lonely.

    the people aren't coming any more. Why is that?

    Because it's a huge time sink compared to online shopping. Because there's really very little (or nothing) there to drag us in. Because it's a great way to catch a lovely cold or flu. Because there are innumerable better / more entertaining things to do with, to and for others. Because the parking ranges from horrible to outright dangerous, something shared with most big box stores in my experience, which again tends to send me online.

    The only reason I can even think of that would attract me to a mall would be a good restaurant, but what good restaurant is going to locate in a mall? All I've ever seen was fast food right down to the elephants and turtle. Perhaps it's just the malls in my state, but that's been my experience.

  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:40PM (1 child)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:40PM (#499557)

    It must be the malls in your state. The malls in my area (northern VA) have lots of expensive chain restaurants (Legal Seafood for instance), and other non-chain ones.

    Of course, the best restaurants are the non-chain ones in "old town" downtown areas, but those are hard to get to because of parking.

    • (Score: 1) by fyngyrz on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:31PM

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:31PM (#499641) Journal

      Yes, we definitely don't have Legal Seafood here, and yes, I'd go for that. Touché.