Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Life and Death of the American Mall: The indoor suburban shopping center is a special kind of abandoned place.
Atlas Obscura ^ | January 10, 2024 | Matthew Christopher

Posted on 01/17/2024 8:54:30 AM PST by fwdude

I've visited hundreds of abandoned places in my life—factories to asylums, schools to churches—but suburban malls might be the most surreal and striking. They captivate the imagination in a way few other types of environments can: with an almost imperceptible layer of fog that forms between the first and second floors of an atrium, endless reflections of vacant storefronts, or a chance encounter with a groundhog in the remains of a food court. Stripped of signage and wares, they are nearly perfectly liminal spaces. Malls have become a part of the modern collective unconscious, through both the haze of half-buried memories of any American over the age of 20 and their ubiquity in popular media. They reflect the American consumer’s identity, and to see a suburban mall in ruins warps nostalgia into something nightmarish and forlorn in a way that abandoned factories, hospitals, or even churches don’t quite do.

(Excerpt) Read more at atlasobscura.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History
KEYWORDS: commerce; death; life; malls; retail; shopping
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-84 next last
To: FlipWilson
I would argue that only the strongest, and most adaptable, survive.

It has nothing to do with the strength or adaptability of the mall. It's the proximity of "teenagers."

41 posted on 01/17/2024 10:11:00 AM PST by Angelino97
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

Malls were the beginning of the deaths of our busy down towns in Massachusetts.
Businesses moved to malls and abandoned Main streets and quaint little shops.
I hate seeing them now but hopefully main street areas come back to life.
JMHO.


42 posted on 01/17/2024 10:11:06 AM PST by The Mayor (Loving Father, help me find my fulfillment in You.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fwdude
Novelty meant that when one mall became dated or, sometimes, viewed as dangerous—often through white shoppers’ perception of nonwhite shoppers and the stores that served them—there was another one to go to instead.

They can never not introduce race into everything.

43 posted on 01/17/2024 10:16:49 AM PST by usafa92 (Donald J. Trump, 45th and 47th President of the United States of America!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

See SNL, the Scotch Tape store (long, long ago, when SNL was funny).


44 posted on 01/17/2024 10:18:29 AM PST by Roadrunner383 (m)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: The Mayor
Malls were the beginning of the deaths of our busy down towns...

I'm old enough to remember just at the beginning of malls, we'd have large department stores with flagship locations in our downtown business district. Stripling's was one of them. They had a Santa's castle constructed in the store for the holidays and it was something we always looked forward to every year.

We had one local retail empire called "Leonards" which covered something like 7 city blocks downtown, and sold everything from groceries to building materials. Employed thousands of people at all levels. They even constructed a rail service (electric) from a massive parking lot just outside of the downtown area to their main store. Completely free to ride.

45 posted on 01/17/2024 10:33:30 AM PST by fwdude (.When unarmed Americans are locked up for protesting a stolen election, you know it was stolen.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: The Mayor

Suburban sprawl was the beginning of the death of the downtowns. The malls were a consequence.


46 posted on 01/17/2024 10:35:08 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

I read through more than 40 posts on this thread and didn’t see one reference to “internet shopping”. Now an argument can be made that the entertainment value of the mall declined because of a change in the environment that was caused by rowdy teens and therefore folks turned to internet shopping.

But for me It was simply the convenience of sitting at home to do comparative shopping.


47 posted on 01/17/2024 10:41:30 AM PST by wildbill (The older I get, the less the term 'life in prison" scares me)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

I remember setting a rule in my family that no one was to go to two specific malls in Charlotte. They were not safe, in my opinion.

They are both closed now.


48 posted on 01/17/2024 10:45:10 AM PST by gitmo (If your theology doesn't match your biography, what good is it?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Mathews

“Our government wants us shopping online.”

Maybe they do, but in my opinion, online shopping is the main reason for the decline of malls.

An advantage of online shopping that’s not mentioned much is that we have such a tremendous amount of goods to choose from, that you can’t put the entire variety into areas that people walk around in.

Clothes is a perfect example. Are you likely to find exactly what pair of jeans you want in a walk-in store? Brand, length, waste, color, style... Try something on in a store and then go to Amazon to buy the exact combination you want.

In the mall nearest us, a Bed Bath and Beyond shut down a few months ago. Today my wife found that a Holly Hobby is moving into the space. A K-mart shut down a few years ago. A Target is now there.

The culprit if you want to call it that is technology.


49 posted on 01/17/2024 10:57:12 AM PST by cymbeline
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: FlipWilson

Yes, that’s true. If they can survive becoming the hunting ground for urban criminals.


50 posted on 01/17/2024 10:58:43 AM PST by Gaffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: fwdude
A mall is a more defensible location against theft than stores on the street.

If the malls had the guts to replace all doors with ones that could be closed and locked electronically, then any time there was a theft in any store, the doors could be shut and the criminals would have nowhere to go until the police showed up. Even better if the malls had armed security.

Yes, at first there might be some dangerous gunfights, but if the criminals never got away, then they would eventually move on to the unprotected stores on the street.

51 posted on 01/17/2024 10:59:15 AM PST by who_would_fardels_bear (What is left around which to circle the wagons?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

Mall killed downtown business, covid and big ox stores wounded malls, online retailed finished them off. Retail Darwinism


52 posted on 01/17/2024 10:59:53 AM PST by BigFreakinToad (Remember the Biden Kitchen Fire of 2004)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DCBryan1
Hawthorne mall closes because of urban youths.

Urban youths start "shopping" at South Bay Galleria.

South Bay Galleria closes most of its shops because of urban youths.

Urban youths start "shopping" at Del Amo mall.

It's only a matter of time before one of the largest malls in the world is closed.

53 posted on 01/17/2024 11:01:21 AM PST by who_would_fardels_bear (What is left around which to circle the wagons?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: fwdude

The target clientele does not want to park out in some large parking lot, waddle a few hundred yards to a heated/cooled atrium, and then waddle a couple hundred yards more to a store, especially if the temperature is more than 5 degrees away from 70 or there is precipitation of any sort.

They want to park near the door of a big box store.

The weird crap sold by the mall boutique stores is now available in wider selection on the internet.


54 posted on 01/17/2024 11:03:39 AM PST by FarCenter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BigFreakinToad
"big ox stores wounded malls"

Watch out for those horns!

55 posted on 01/17/2024 11:05:40 AM PST by who_would_fardels_bear (What is left around which to circle the wagons?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

I moved out of East Cobb, Georgia where my family had lived since before the Civil War. This was 25 years ago (to North Georgia) to a little county with 20K people and a few traffic lights you could count them on one hand. The prime requirement was to be away from a rail, bus or interstate line.

Since then, the county size has nearly doubled - escapees from ATL, economy has boomed, my house value has doubled and still no bus line.... and when I go to a county or city agency they actually try to help me.


56 posted on 01/17/2024 11:06:08 AM PST by Gaffer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: cymbeline

Porch Pirates also like on-line shoppers.


57 posted on 01/17/2024 11:07:44 AM PST by who_would_fardels_bear (What is left around which to circle the wagons?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

I’ll give that to, to a point. the first mall was far away from us it was them expanding over the years that helped kill main streets. There is hardly much room in most Mass towns for suburban sprawl.

Our first mall was built in the 60’s and stayed the only one for years, now they are all over.


58 posted on 01/17/2024 11:09:41 AM PST by The Mayor (Loving Father, help me find my fulfillment in You.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: dfwgator

That brought a laugh to me because it is so true. There are a couple malls left around here but they are decaying behemoths. Dangerous to enter anymore with the top notch stores all gone..


59 posted on 01/17/2024 11:10:00 AM PST by dforest
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: cuban leaf

I loved malls. They were efficient. Literally one-stop shopping — and eating and being entertained. Malls at Christmas were beautifully decorated.


60 posted on 01/17/2024 11:10:00 AM PST by MayflowerMadam ("A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-84 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson