Would you like to be depressed? Then read this:

[BaalChatzaf]

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jun/19/-sp-death-of-the-american-shopping-mall

The demise of the American shopping mall.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[SoAMadDeathWish]

Why? This is capitalism at work. Out with the old, in with the new.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Why? This is capitalism at work. Out with the old, in with the new.

Naomi,

Dayaam!

I actually agree with you.

Michael

[Jules Troy]

Why? This is capitalism at work. Out with the old, in with the new.

Naomi,

Dayaam!

I actually agree with you.

Michael

[Jules Troy]

That should be stickied to the front page!!

[BaalChatzaf]

I agree. The market place has taken its condign toll. But they at least should try to recycle these places and put them to some sound use. I guess it is seeing once busy and thriving places gone to rot and ruin. It resonates in me like seeing once healthy

people gone to disease and decay.

The malls were NOT bad places (generally) and in their time they served a useful purpose. Better or more economical ways have been found to sell the wares of the merchants. So be it.

I felt somewhat the same way when they took down the Third Avenue El. I had many an enjoyable ride on the trains all the way from Gun Hill Road to the Battery. But it eventually became an eye sore and an impediment to traffic so it had to go.

Old farts like me sometimes become attached to things that wear out or outlive their usefulness. Nostalgia and remembrance is not entirely rational.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Jerry Biggers]

The article sounds like a wet dream/wish fulfillment of the British radical Left, The Guardian always in the vanguard of British socialist advocacy that has served Britain so well over its century-long decline. Anything that might help squash capitalism, particularly its catering to commerial crassness must be good. So, throw in a few pictures of dead or dying malls, and proclaim that that means that all malls are on the way to the trash heap..

Quoting Mark Twain, "Stories in the newspapers reporting my recent demise have been greatly exaggerated."

[william.scherk]

I have the kind of tidy mind that enjoys looking at books of urban planning and engineering. It's been interesting to watch the last thirty years of urban growth in North America. The malls story is one small part (dead mall syndrome even has an informative Wikipedia page!) that I find interesting. There has been a series of articles over the last year on the phenomenon, the best at CityLab. Sad folks can feel sadder by visiting DeadMalls.com.

The flow of commerce through and past some malls reflects local eddies and sloughs of development that happen in a complicated continental economy. Not all US malls of a certain age are in decline or empty or repurposed or demolished. Some regions suffer depopulation, others less dire results of industrial base decline. The death-rate of malls is relative to the overall pitch of local economy -- where would we expect a dead mall: metropolitan Detroit or Atlanta?

I can't speak to other cities in detail, but should mention that in metropolitan Vancouver, if a mall is aged or troubled, it will be rebuilt with high-rises included. Even if it isn't old or troubled, it will be building highrises on its former parking lots. The major malls in the region compete with each other in establishing denser urban form. The next major conversion will turn the aging but prosperous Brentwood Mall into a many-towered neighborhood hard on the train to Vancouver.

I don't know what to say to someone whose economy foundered enough, or changed enough, to shutter major regional malls. I think there has been a 'peak suburbia' kind of moment, when the least expensive option for continued growth in the future is to 'densify' the near city nodes and neighbourhoods. Though sprawl will continue, it will be balanced by more development closer in. Some places will continue to coast or contract.