I couldn’t imagine trying to sell anything but essentials in this economy; there simply aren’t enough government workers and 1%ers to buy everything, and the imported foreigners are thrifty (since they haven’t been raised in a consumer economy).
I often use the Meadowlands here in NJ as a great example of what is going on (at least in NJ); a brand-new mall completed a few years ago that hasn’t opened (for which they are now searching for alternative uses), a new football stadium that hardly brought in any money to local economies when it hosted the Super Bowl (and for which commercials are aired endlessly hawking season tickets), and a growing flea market filled with common supermarket items (including seafood - yuck) in which foreigners walk around buying items from destitute Americans (including the tools they used to work with) - all for cash.
When even Wal-Mart is in trouble, it is impossible to pretend everything is hunky-dory...