I watch a lot of Dead Mall videos on YouTube and I wanted to see what everyone’s thoughts are on why there’s so many dead malls now.
City Beautiful made a video video on the subject.
Great video thank you!
Hrm. No one has mentioned the decline of middle class wages.
I remember in the … late 70s/early 80s my mother would drag us to the mall nearly every weekend. She was there to buy clothes. She always wanted something new and she wanted to try on at least a dozen items before buying one or two. I was thrilled when I was old enough to go off to the record store and/or hobby store while she did that. Earlier, I begged to go the the toy store, but was typically refused. Later, I was at the book store getting paperback scifi.
I don’t think people have as much disposable income as they did then. I don’t know many people who can buy as much frivolous stuff as my folks used to. I guess I could technically buy stuff all the time, but I want to save fore retirement. My folks had pensions. I have to put it away myself.
The disappearance of defined benefit retirement plans is yet another way those on top are boning us, and it is NOT being talked about enough.
It actually screws us 2 ways. First, by removing liability/responsibility from the company and putting it on people. Second, by forcing everyone to have to car about the stock market, and be subject to its whims
I’ll also offer the “sameness” of everything at malls. Let’s say you want jeans. There’s five shops that carry jeans. You want “normal” jeans, iow, not torn, not bleached, etc. Each shop carries jeans, but they are all some version of torn, worn, bleached, etc. For all the variety, they’re all the same.
Plus, mall overhead and branding makes the shops quite often more expensive than you might find at something like a Target or even a Kohls.
I’ve found that taking my kids to the mall to check out clothing we more often than not buy nothing despite visiting a half dozen shops. It’s all variations of the same thing along with being designer pricing.
So I’m not in America and might be able to offer some insight. Others have mentioned big box stores, online shopping, and lack of money as the main culprits. I’m fairly certain big box stores are not it, and the fault may lay almost entirely on amazon.
Where I’m from, malls are still the place to go for new things to buy, including electronics, clothes (of varying degrees of quality and price), drugs (the legal kind), and home decor. Businesses like Walmart (as in, supermarkets that sell things other than groceries) have shops inside those same malls. In the whole city, there is one standalone Walmart, in the emptiest part of town with middle-upper class suburbs around it. The one exception is Costco, which has two franchises in town, not inside a mall, but the demographic that goes there is decidedly middle class families and businesses.
We can order stuff from amazon, but it ends up being about the same in terms of cost, and takes up to a month to arrive. Money is tight for pretty much everyone at the moment, but we all still go to the mall from time to time, for one reason or another.
For example, I’m overdue a visit to get my eyes checked again, my glasses need replacing. And I’ll probably stop by the radioshack (yup, remember that?) and nab some rechargeable AAs.
Malls were dying in the US well before Amazon and online shopping itself was meaningful. Big box stores did a number on them. Best Buy and Circuit City had nearly the same selection of music that mall music stores did for much lower prices. Stores like Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million eviscerated the smaller more expensive mall book stores. Walmart, Target, and the like hit everything else.
Once that decline happened, I noticed that many malls started going after the kids that just hung around malls and weren’t in constant spend mode. Teens were treated like pests that were not wanted. Guess who got the message and didn’t come back a few years later when they had jobs and money?
Malls in the 80s and early 90s were pretty awesome, but malls told us to fuck off so we did. They can rot.
Interesting. Malls around me seem to cater mostly to young adults with expendable income. Lots of non-traditional cuisine (commercialised of course, not high-brow places), wine bars, etc. Places where you’d go to on a night out with the gang.
Now that you mention it, they have stopped catering to the youngest demographic. I think the laser tags closed down before the pandemic, and the arcades have been gone for a decade. Unless Chuck E. Cheese has some, I haven’t been. Maybe we’re catching up, then. I still see young teens, around the age I was when I visited those places, walk around. No idea what shops they go into though. Maybe the ice cream places, and the food court.
Not to mention storage space. Like most people their generation, my parents have a garage and an attic. All this extra space to hoard stuff
Honestly malls are thriving where I live, and I go regularly to extremely large crowds. I know it’s a trend worldwide, but if all I knew was my local city, I would have no idea.
Without outing yourself… Can you share where?
Or even a population size.
In the big cities I’m in, they’ve become deserts.
Big real estate killed malls. They aren’t as efficient at generating rent due to their maintenance and upkeep costs, so real estate holdings firms are hell bent on liquidating them, subdividing them, and redeveloping the land piecemeal in ways that better optimize for fine access control and not having to take care of any “dead” non-money-making spaces such as the concourses between the stores. Instead: just parking lots between store fronts.
Now there’s a Walmart, a Home Depot, an Applebee’s, a mattress store, a liquor store, and maybe a transient party supply store that will occasionally occupy a space on a seasonal basis. When a slot isn’t occupied by a tenant, they get to shut off the power, water, and climate control completely, and not have to end up wasting electricity or fuel conditioning the air of a space no one goes to right then.
If you WANTED to make a mall work, you could, especially if you added faux “residential” space (actually retail space where the product being sold is storage and privacy, with “sleep” being “against the rules” but they built it to intentionally not know that that’s what the “customers” are doing there). Residential malls would guarantee a constant customer and worker base as people come and go to visit family and friends and end up shopping along the way.
But they don’t want that.
They want to sell a MINIMUM viable product, and charge maximally for it.
Capitalists are always minmaxing …
They aren’t as efficient at generating rent due to their maintenance and upkeep costs, so real estate holdings firms are hell bent on liquidating them, subdividing them, and redeveloping the land piecemeal in ways that better optimize for fine access control and not having to take care of any “dead” non-money-making spaces such as the concourses between the stores. Instead: just parking lots between store fronts.
This is what happened near me. The malls got turned inside out, so it’s just big boxes around a giant parking lot.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Speaking from an outside perspective; malls (what we call shopping centres) in Australia didn’t die anywhere near what has happened in the US. We have a very different geographic landscape (hyper-concentration of population in city centres) and definitely don’t have the same level of penetration that companies like Amazon do, but we have shared a lot of the same economic headwinds that the US has. From my armchair perspective, this would generally suggest that it’s less to do with economic position and more to do with idiosyncrasies of the US, but I have absolutely no data to back that up.
We have shopping centers in the US and a lot of them are still thriving. They tend to be smaller than malls but they’re more numerous. They usually have one or two big stores like Target or Home Depot along with several smaller stores. They’re also not enclosed so it’s easier to get to a small store in a shopping center than it is in a mall.
Hmm maybe what you call a mall in Australia is what Americans call a strip mall?
Indoor malls have been on the way out for a while. They’re large Indoor spaces that need to be heated or cooled and attract young people with no money and nowhere to go. Also in a mall you only buy so much as you tired of carrying it around. An outdoor Plaza encourages people to go back to their car and unload.
Its not any one thing, but a system of many things working against malls in a variety of manners:
- The distance of malls from city centers stemming from white flight
- Real estate development costs
- Tax benefits and subsidies
- The availability of online shopping and delivery
- The appearance of super marts like Walmart, typically in other rural or suburban areas
- Easier access to entertainment through the internet, social media, and mobile devices
- Changing social norms
- COVID
What is white flight?
Throughout the 60s, as city centers became more populous, an increasingly paranoid and racist section (boomers) started moving to the suburbs out of fear of being around black people. They took their wealth and ambitions with them, leading to broad suburban growth in many metropolitan areas, and eventual policy actions.
Some places drained out or paved over pools just to make sure those scary people would enjoy themselves too much.
Combinations. Amazon, smart phones, how kids hang out, poverty, giant stores like target and wal mart…It’s a bunch of reasons that all hit against malls.
Malls haven’t been the only hit over the decades. “Cruisin” is no longer a thing. Teens used to spend hours on nice nights driving up and down a certain stretch of road in nearly every city somewhere.
More kids used to ride bikes around for funnies.
Drive in movie theaters used to be huge.
Things always change and it’s almost never just a single reason.
“Cruisin” is no longer a thing
That’s not the case in much of the rural US. In small towns (~30-75k) everywhere there are kids driving up and down the road every Friday and Saturday night.
You’ll just have to trust me, or ask an old timer from one of those cities you speak of (I’m from one of several in the area). They’re about 1/4 the amount of traffic that they used to be.
It’s because they can’t remember where their meth dealer lives this week.
Part of that is also how in our car-centric society, our public transportation sucks. And biking is unsafe in many places— even spots that have bike lanes. Everything is too far way, so you can only get there by car. Everywhere you that is close is either unsafe or actually impossible to bike to, unless you’re lucky. And if you wanna take the metro or bus, it’s slow af, unreliable, and in many places has very few stops and runs infrequently.
And then the lack of people using public transportation only leads to more cars on the road which makes the problem even worse! More lanes, more land used for parking lot deserts, etc.
Nowhere to go, no way to get there, nothing to do.
This is one of my things I go off about. People sometimes tell me they want to move out of the city “for their kids” and I’m like are you crazy? The suburbs were hell as a kid. Can’t go anywhere because you don’t have a car and walking is dangerous and slow. I was always so jealous of my friends that lived in the city. They could just go do stuff
“Cruisin” is no longer a thing. Teens used to spend hours on nice nights driving up and down a certain stretch of road in nearly every city somewhere.
Not only is this no longer a thing it’s actually explicitly illegal in some places. Passing the same location 4 times within a short period or “driving without a destination” can get you a ticket if the cops are paying attention.
Yep. That’s the thing that never changes. “The man” is a total asshole killjoy.
That’s kinda fucked up. Almost sounds like laws targeting homeless people living out of their cars. And for anyone else, why shouldn’t I be able to just tour around and look at sights without necessarily stopping anywhere? That’s basically what I do every weekend for fun.
Conventional brick and mortar retail is extremely expensive to maintain. It has less to do with Amazon specifically, and more to do with the rise of online retail & direct to consumer business models more generally. Don’t get me wrong, Amazon was a huge pioneer in that area, but it would have happened one way or another.
The mall was dying by the 80’s, there was a sharp decline by then (I recall seeing numerous malls going vacant in the 90’s, around the country).
The things that drove mall popularity (especially things like large, enclosed, air-conditioned space), were no longer novel. Most cars were air-conditioned by then.
I’m sure there are many other factors, like the growth of free-standing single-vendor buildings (so construction and management costs must’ve changed).
Amazon really had nothing to do with it.
Amazon did more for killing off small businesses – the big box store chains did more for killing off shopping malls (their preference is the strip mall where they can showcase their entire frontage (and do an end-run around building codes))
and yes, everyone is too broke on top of everything else
I remember hearing that big box stores killed malls. I thought they killed malls, and Amazon killed big box stores, but Amazon can also kill malls, so it was a bit of a double-whammy for malls
Malls were being killed by big box complexes before Amazon was prevalent, but the one-two punch didn’t do them any favors.
I see it as a combination of things…
Big box retailers.
Online sales.
People stopped going to movie theaters.So what’s the reason to go to a mall? Crappy food court food?
So what’s the reason to go to a mall? Crappy food court food?
The last dozen or so times I’ve been to a mall, the only thing I’ve spent money on was food. It’s hard to justify spending money at the mall when I know I can get just about anything there from an online retailer for a lot cheaper. But I can’t get an Orange Julius online. Yet.
But I can’t get an Orange Julius online.
Uber Eats, Door Dash, Grubhub, etc. all exist for this exact type of purchase.
Although you will pay for the convenience, as opposed to it being cheaper like most other products since the physical store is still involved.
Yep, when you want your Orange Julius to cost $22
There’s a fuckin delicious Asian place in my local mall that has the best teriyaki chicken and fried rice I’ve ever had. That and Charley’s lemonade are a couple of the only reasons I go to my mall.
By charleys you mean the Philly cheesesteak place right? Love them, too bad there aren’t any near me
That’s the one. They also go by a different name in some other parts of the country, I think. I don’t remember what it is though.
There’s one about 45min away, just to far to justify, but maybe I’ll make it out there sometime
Out of curiosity; where are your grocery stores, pharmacies and post offices? Because here in Australia, most of them are in shopping centres (Aussie for ‘mall’). The vast majority of us go to do our weekly shop, grab medication, send back returns from our online shopping etc. so they’re still very much alive and well.
American malls are three categories. Generally when people say “the mall”, they mean big, indoor, enclosed malls. That’s what is dying a slow death.
A local example for me:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clackamas_Town_Center
The problem has been the large anchor stores are going out of business and the stores that remain struggle to survive.
The kind of mall you describe, Americans call “strip malls” and are much smaller and open to the elements. A grocery store, maybe a bank, fast food, not an official post office, but a pack and ship location, sometimes a DMV. That kind of thing.
Strip malls also struggle, there’s one by my house where the big grocery store just closed leaving it maybe 50% vacant.
We also have stand alone grocery stores that aren’t part of strip malls that collect other small stores around it like mini-moons. Barbershops, laundromats, liquor stores.
As long as the grocery store operates, everyone does fine.
Edit Almost forgot… “Big Box Complexes”. Not really malls, just large block stores sharing a common parking lot. So like a Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, all stand alone stores with shared parking.
In America, there’s like 3 different things you could call a mall. When most people talk about them, it means a giant building with central indoor paths connecting a bunch of businesses. Typically, there would be a handful of “anchor” businesses, like department stores and a movie theater, and then space for a bunch of much smaller businesses in between including restaurants. These malls (at least the ones I’ve been to) for whatever reason don’t typically have grocery stores. I have seen pharmacies and small Dr’s offices in them.
Then there are “strip malls” that are typically a row of businesses on one side or surrounding a big parking lot. Typically grocery stores are in those.
Lastly, there’s “outlet malls”, which are often set up like a fake town with parking distributed throughout. They are commonly built on cheap land in the outskirts of towns, and they have mostly clothing. They are typically brand specific stores (e.g., Nike), so they are allegedly cheaper.
It’s that first category that Americans are going to be talking about if they just refer to a “mall”, though. The idea to have all your shops in a convenient place has been around forever, and still works great in many traditional business districts. The “shopping mall”, though, was somewhat of an artificial movement in the 80’s and 90’s that was always a bit destined to fail. Like people have said, the internet is partially responsible, but malls were hurting before the internet started really doing damage. In America, you basically have to drive everywhere, and if you are driving everywhere, it’s easiest to just drive directly to whatever shop you need. With malls, you have to park far out in a giant lot, and walk a long way to get to whatever business. You could call it lazy, but if you’ve only got a little bit of time after a day of work to do shopping, are you going to do the option where you get the task done in 30 minutes, or an hour?
Such an interesting perspective, thanks for your contribution! I guess our ‘shopping centres’ are essentially the first condition you’ve described that also have grocery stores attached, and it’s likely the grocery store (in Australia this basically means one of 3-4 companies) that are keeping these structures going in the modern age. Our shopping centres tend to be built ‘up’ rather than ‘out’, with 3-5 storey shopping centres (with up to 7 storey parking lots) being fairly common within city limits that are closely accessible to more than 50% of the population.
That being said though, I live fairly equidistant between two of the largest shopping centres in Sydney and still choose to go to my local, smaller, single-storey shopping centre which is very small by Australian standards (<40 stores) which feels much more like a ‘mall’.
Do you guys have a lot of standalone grocery stores that you can drive right up to, park, shop and leave? Because that’s definitely the minority here!
We definitely get most of our groceries from standalone grocery stores. For the most part, you drive right to it.
I just looked at some Sydney shopping centres, and they look much like our malls on the inside (except for groceries), but it seems like they are much more integrated in the neighborhoods. It looks like parking garages are more popular there than the giant lots here.
I just looked at the dead mall wikipedia page, and it has a picture of the century 3 mall. That’s a good example of what they look like here; separate from where people live, and surrounded by big lots. You can actually see the strip malls that replaced it all around it.
Take a Brazilian Lemonade recipe and sub in oranges. :) Make it at home.
Apparently there’s a recipe on that page. Here’s the same page without the crud: https://www.justtherecipe.com/?url=https://houseofnasheats.com/brazilian-lemonade-limeade/
Great website.
Successful malls have an Apple Store, Tesla, and Louis Vuitton, which tells us something about who can still afford to shop there.
Paradoxically, I would still go to movies if they were willing to kick people out for using their phone once during the film. There’s only one theater in my area that’s strict like that.
The rise of the suburban mall and its downward spiral are pre-Amazon, and largely had to do with tax decisions and costs to the public sector, though online shopping did accelerate the collapse. Slate, 2017: The Retail Apocalypse Is Suburban
In addition to the other replies, items there were just too expensive. Now, items are too expensive without the mall, and it’s not to do with regular/mid-low level management, supply chain costs, but due to price gouging, in order to pay executive, board, and and other major share holders/investors. (See the Economic Policy Institute reports on this, for more info).
