Changes in American malls

[mtbc]

I was looking at a couple of empty storefronts in an indoor mall here in central Michigan and thinking back to Northland Mall in central Ohio. It lasted for a few decades but competing malls at Easton and Polaris were the final nails in its coffin: the last I saw, they were the kind of malls at which the affluent young people hang out, entertainment mixed in with the shops; we used to go to a gym at Easton. One can now read about the Northland Mall on deadmalls.com.

While I like much about the Midwest, the decline of some malls is an exception to that. I don't notice it happen in the same way in Britain; perhaps charity shops with lower business rates fill the gap. I don't know if the Northland Mall was just out of date. I don't think it was located in too poor an area, one from out of which the economic bottom had dropped so badly that even a mall could not be supported. I suppose the story is indeed simply that an adequate mall was supplanted by new shiny ones. In other cases malls may have to compete with comprehensive cheap stores like Walmart, though I note that some Kmarts have closed in this part of Michigan.

Wikipedia tells me that the Northland Mall's central concourse is now Kroger, a grocery store. One of the previous anchor stores is now state tax offices. I am sad that the mall became unsustainable. I expect that economists well understand why; I wonder how simple that story is. Especially, maybe once a mall is on the decline, perhaps that is hard to reverse.

Comments

[goldibehr]

There's a pretty good article about this in the current issue of Time magazine. Someone estimated that 20% of existing malls in USA will close in the next 5(?) years. The tldr reason is that on-line shopping has better selection and is cheaper.

[mtbc]

I can see that, I guess, even if it feels like a shame. There've been a few times that I've even only reluctantly resorted to online shopping after multiple bricks-and-mortar stores failed to have a not-very-unusual item I wanted at a reasonable price. Just a few days ago I was looking at belts in Target and they had the size I wanted and the style I wanted but not both in the same belt.