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

[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.

[fwdude]

If you've lived through the inception and decline of the cultural cycle of shopping malls, you'll appreciate this article. Some of my earliest memories was of a novel new outdoor mall.

[goodnesswins]

Need to use them to create “mental hospitals”...

[FlipWilson]

I have seen abandoned malls but I also see some still thriving. While the mall is in decline, I would argue that only the strongest, and most adaptable, survive.

[ClearCase_guy]

I think everyone knows why actual shoppers stopped going to most malls. It was the bus stops.

[DCBryan1]

not gonna say it....

I saw the quick demise of Bannister mall in KCMO due to blacks being bussed in from Truman/Troost area of KCMO.

It was DAYS before first fights, days before gunfire, weeks before violent attacks, and a couple of months until the first of many murders/rapes.

[Blueflag]

And who congregated where, and when. AND how they ‘behaved’ in movie theaters.

[dfwgator]

There are two kinds of malls: The malls the white people go to, and the malls the white people used to go to. - Chris Rock

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Here in Silicon Valley, many of the towns were built up in the post-war 1950s. Land was cheap and widely available, so the sprawling indoor and outdoor malls sprang up. There were huge parking lots out front and you walked to the single story store buildings. Even in the towns, you’d find big supermarkets with huge parking plazas.

All gone. Everything has gone vertical. The grocery stores have either parking garages, underground parking or parking on street level and the store on the second level. The spaciousness is gone. Where you not long ago had single story commercial buildings set back 50 feet or more from the street, you now have four and five story buildings hard up against the sidewalk. We went from open, livable, breathable spaces to the confinements of Manhattan.

It is awful.

[EEGator]

Public bus routes + blacks = destroyed mall

[cuban leaf]

I’ve seen a lot of youtube videos regarding abandoned or virtually abandoned malls.

I lost interest in shopping at malls back at the end of the 20th century. I also became a costco member in 1988, which really started the whole process. I used malls to get walking exercise in the winter and maybe get coffee at one of the coffeeshops. But I stopped buying stuff there a very long time ago. With the internet and amazon now, I don’t understand why people even still use them.

Just to be clear, I stopped using them early on because I saw them as the most expensive place to get stuff. FWIW, I worked at the Bellevue Square mall selling hi-fi and video in the early 80’s before I got into IT. I never bought anything there then either (except coffee).

[EEGator]

Scott Adams is right.

(He’s also correct about being process oriented vs goals oriented)

[Gay State Conservative]

The town I live in is surrounded on three sides by very affluent towns.Because of this there's a very large,very high end mall in my town.Over the last couple of years more and more of the retail space has become vacant.Several very large stores have gone.

It seems to me that it's in a pretty substantial state of decline.I want it to survive because of the taxes my town gets and because it's a fantastic place to walk during hot/cold/rainy/snowy weather.

[cgbg]

See post 9.

That is what killed malls in my area.

[cuban leaf]

Public bus routes + blacks = destroyed mall

---

It’s also why downton Seattle changes its personality when the sun goes down.

[Magnum44]

I dont understand how malls could be dying?

[EEGator]

At least they’re bipolar. Philly is always “not sunny”.

[Mathews]

Our government wants us shopping online. Makes it easier to monitor what we’re doing, keeps us home and it’ll easier for them to usher in the fifteen-minute cities.

[fwdude]

I think everyone knows why actual shoppers stopped going to most malls. It was the bus stops.

And the 'equity' relocations of Section 8 housing by Democrat administrations (Obama.) Section 8 = violent ghetto.

Notably in my area, there was a very popular neighborhood begun in the 1950's that was THE place to live if you were mid- to upper-middle class. Majority white, it was considered the perfect intact neighborhood, with low crime and good schools. It is now Section 8 hell.

[x]

[Vaquero]

“Need to use them to create “mental hospitals”...“

I like your way of thinking.