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.
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.
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?
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 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.
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.
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
Take a Brazilian Lemonade recipe and sub in oranges. :) Make it at home.
https://houseofnasheats.com/brazilian-lemonade-limeade/
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.
Oohhh, that sounds delicious! My old boss at work was telling me about Brazilian lemonades a while back and I’ve been meaning to try it at some point.
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
Right, there’s got to be a good reason to go to the mall. The successful malls still draw crowds because they have more than just stores and a movie theater.
Successful malls have an Apple Store, Tesla, and Louis Vuitton, which tells us something about who can still afford to shop there.