Posted on 08/13/2017 10:16:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I saw a lot of this sprouting up in the Seattle area before I left. Downtown Kent and Redmond had this sort of thing. It’s really cool. But I was seeing them before stuff like Amazon Prime went into full gear. If I still lived there, the restaurants and theater are all that I’d need there. And the theater only because it was imax 3D. I’d never bother to go to a “normal” theater with the quality of home theater now. And with all the free stuff that comes with Amazon prime, fuggitaboutit.
i.e. I think even that paradigm will be highly limited.
Who is really gonna get killed by this stuff is the municipalities that depend on the taxes from these shopping centers. Tukwila, WA. comes to mind. Southcenter mall was put there around 1970 and the tax income was so huge that their schools became incredibly sought after to the point where they had to verify that each student that attempted to enroll did, in fact, live in the school district.
It was actually pretty comical.
All they have to do is charge ten bucks to get into the mall and then you get that amount returned to you if you can show receipts of over ten dollars. Of course, the food court would need a separate entrance.
I can see this already in and around where I live. The local villages have farmers markets weekly and they're PACKED with people supporting locally grown foods, crafts and other goods.
Local cabinet, furniture and other "makers" are thriving here as well.
Farm to table restaurants where everything is locally grown, harvested, butchered, etc.. are thriving as are local custom breweries. There is a HUGE local economy movement thriving here. Don't know about the rest of the country.
I can also tell you that local malls are dying because their service SUCKS. Here's an example: Saturday morning I had to call Amazon Customer Service because one of my Echo's power supplies died. Within 5 minutes I'd reached customer service, was routed to the correct person to authorize the replacement of the power supply, had a credit on my account to order it, ordered the power supply, and had it delivered via drone to my home later that day.
Five minutes.
I cannot get to the local mall in 5 minutes much less find someone in customer service in a store who can address and fix a simple problem in 5 minutes!
Customer service: It's why local malls are dying, IMO.
I’m not a racist, but I most definitely am a culturist. It’s not the skin color or race that is a problem. It is the culture. And you’ll see all races in that culture around malls.
I noticed that bus stop in Tukwilla outside what used to be Southcenter (I forget it’s current name) has LOTS of these ferel youts hanging around. Basically, they have nothing to do so a cheap bus ticket gets them to the mall and they spend the day there instead of hanging out in their dingy, dangerous neighborhood. I don’t blame them, actually, but the clash of cultures is just that - a clash.
I hate just puting this out in front of God and everybody, but there is more “peace” when the cultures stay on their own side of the tracks. This actually speaks to why multiculturalism is not really a good thing.
The nearby mall was part of our family’s choice of residence nearly twenty years ago. The area had a development grant from the state; housing and amenities were being built left and right.
Then someone had the bright idea of building a movie theater on the edge of the mall, and a sidewalk between the metro rail station and the movie theater. Soon, the mall was overrun by gangs of feral youths who had taken the train out of the inner city to grace our fair land of HOA and gated communities.
Last year, the mall was bulldozed, after all the mixed-use, housing and similar attempts to save the mall cited in the above article were exhausted.
The next nearest malls are 13, 18 and 23 miles away. Not very “green.”
Your post describes the best solution. The ones near here that are built that was are thriving, even if the ferals take the train out to get there. It’s just not as claustrophobic to have their gang fights in an open street as it is in an enclosed mall that echoes.
I was day dreaming the other day about what to do with empty malls. Give them city themes and fill them with themed entertainment, bars and restaurants. You’d have to keep the hood rats out and have lots of security and taxi cabs.
One mall I would go to frequently, had a movie theater, restaurants, an auto center, plus the regular stores. We would drop off one of the cars for an oil change, go to the movies while they worked on it, have something to eat after the movies, do a little shopping, pick up the car when the work was done.
It was a convenient place to go to.
That didn’t save it when the bus stop to the slums was installed.
“That didn’t save it when the bus stop to the slums was installed.”
Nope,sad isn’t it?
.
Just add a brew pub with great food as an anchor - that will save the mall until the brew pub phase declines. Actually , I think the brew pub phenomenon/craze is partly attributed to the “excursion”.
I go online to Land’s End and LL Bean and Amazon for most of what I need.
The only option I’ve ever seen used in my metro area during the last 40 years is this one:
5. Tearing down the mall
It’s cheaper to purpose-build new structures than to retrofit a crumbling mall.
“Malls are cool hang-outs for kids and moms and seniors.”
and feral yutes ...
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