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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: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:21PM (2 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @08:21PM (#499534)

    The reason is you can't get quality stuff new anymore. Everything is made in China and instantly breaks, no matter how formerly prestigious the label on it was.

    This is hyperbole. There's still a lot of good stuff, but it'll cost you.

    But you can go to the antique stores and buy a claw hammer forged in 1935 that will last until the end of time.

    You can get very good hand tools (unpowered) at Harbor Freight now for very cheap prices, with a lifetime warranty to boot.

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  • (Score: 1) by toddestan on Friday April 28 2017, @10:47PM (1 child)

    by toddestan (4982) on Friday April 28 2017, @10:47PM (#501344)

    This is hyperbole. There's still a lot of good stuff, but it'll cost you.

    That's true, but you have to be able to differentiate the true quality stuff from the cheap Chinese crap that's just marked way up. Sure, maybe not a problem if you are reasonably knowledgeable about the product, but I can't do that for every purchase, so often I don't know if the $40 widget is truly better than the $8 widget. But if I buy the $8 widget and it's crap... well at least I still got what I paid for.

    That's one of the big problems with the shops in the mall. They are full $8 cheap Chinese widgets that have been marked up to $40. So why would I go there?

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday April 29 2017, @12:08AM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday April 29 2017, @12:08AM (#501357)

      If you're a guy, mainly people-watching and restaurants, that's about it. Depends on the mall though; some malls do have some interesting specialty stores. I used to live near a mall that had a little store that had nothing but Irish stuff, for instance. Also, if you have a cute girlfriend you can go for the women's clothes, to watch her try stuff on.