The luxury malls in big cities tend to have much more pleasant and flattering lighting than the decayed malls of my broke childhood in Nowheresville.
This highlights that we still mostly talk about suburbs like they're one homogeneous mass, and could use some more differentiation. The places malls seem to still be thriving is the rich suburbs, and people flock there from the middle-to-lower-income suburbs in the same metro.
A few weeks ago I was at another near-death mall - designed by the same guy who did the Space Needle! - and while it was the standard depressing stuff, across the parking lot was an Asian supermarket that had apparently rented out a lot of its spare space to the tiniest of businesses, like a travel agency working on a well-decorated set of folding tables, and that felt super vibrant.
The former Macy's building at the mall by me (an outdoor mall that lacks most of the mall-features discussed in the article) is now a charter school and corporate offices.
The one time I ate at a Rainforest Cafe, it wasn't at a mall. It was at Niagara Falls, between the cigarette stores.
The moral of the story is to bring a passport, because the casino on the Canadian side looks much nicer.
2: Ian California, malls are actually public spaces for free speech purposes.
The last time I was in Colorado I went to the Cherry Creek mall (well-off Denver suburb) which I had know. As quite upscale just looked dumpy. The fancier shops were now on streets, but I'm not sure if they are real city streets. That seems to be the model for newer shopping developments - to make them look like streets. There are a bunch of shops next to the Wegmans in Burlington that are organized by "street".
One of the pioneer designers of the midcentury US mall was an Austrian, Victor Gruen, who later decried how car-centric they had become, contrary to his ideas: "I refuse to pay alimony for those bastard developments. They destroyed our cities."
That seems to be the model for newer shopping developments - to make them look like streets.
The big mall news in my part of LA right now is that Din Tai Fung, the ultrapopular fancy xiaolongbao chain, is moving their Glendale location from the Americana (yes, it's really called that), an outdoor "Main Street USA"-style luxury mall owned by Rick Caruso, the billionaire mall developer who just failed to buy the LA mayor's office, to the Galleria, the old conventional mall across the street (where I spent my weekends as a preteen cadging samples at See's and shoplifting earrings from Contempo Casuals). The Galleria was long seen as being on the way out, as more upscale retailers left for the Americana, so this is quite a reversal in fortune!
The trend for a while was to replace indoor malls with outdoor shopping centers that were alleged to be less car-oriented, although in practice they're actually more. Indoor malls are surrounded by oceans of parking, but at least once you get inside you walk from store to store. The outdoor centers have the same amount of parking but it's between the stores, so in practice you have to drive from store to store most of the time. (There's one of these by our house so we go there a lot. It's convenient but not particularly pleasant.)
Maybe it works better in areas with less access to tundra?
Indoor malls are surrounded by oceans of parking, but at least once you get inside you walk from store to store.
I had an odd experience two months ago where I somewhat unintentionally ended up mall walking. We'd gone to one of the anchor stores, decided to wonder around while we were there, but it ended up being an hour when the mall was open but almost all of the stores were closed (I think the 9-10:00 AM hour on a Sunday) so we just wandered around for a while in relative peace and quiet. I could see why people would do that intentionally; it was surprisingly calm.
The mall by my in-laws was dying, so the state let them put in a casino.
This worked, for values of "worked" that involve a Guy Fierri restaurant.
9: I want an Atlantic think-piece on how the decline of malls means that wastrel teens aren't shoplifting and doing petty theft any more, and organized gangs have filled the void.
I don't think teens are porch pirating. At least the ones I see on Nextdoor look older.
I eat in malls a lot, although I guess not in the Sbarro/Panda Express-style food courts. There's a fancy Taiwanese suburb close to me where, before the pandemic, M and I would have date nights when neither of us felt like planning anything. We'd go early to get happy hour cocktails, and then wander around drunk for a few hours, taking naps on the beanbag chairs at Muji, or trying out all the massage chairs at BodyFriend. We'd go to the arcade to watch the kids play DDR and buy toys for his nieces at the comic book store. Then we'd eat dumplings or noodles, and Japanese cheesecake or patbingsu. It was the best. A bunch of those places never reopened after the pandemic, it's pretty sad.
When my grandmother was alive I'd take her out for lunch every few weeks, and we'd always go to a mall food court in Koreatown because she was too annoying to eat with at a regular restaurant. (She was really fussy and picky and demanding, and at a food court I could sit her down while I went back and forth from the food stalls, thereby sparing the staff from having to interact with her.) As I type this I realize that I've started eating with my parents in malls instead of restaurants, which makes me kind of sad, but I think it's mostly not for the same reasons -- apart from the old-people-management aspects, the mall food in Ktown is really very good.
My wife is, this very day, trying to buffer between her father and medical staff. I suspect she's not succeeding.
Rainforest Cafe where I enjoy one of the wettest sandwiches of my life
Is the sandwich wet because it is always raining at the Rainforest Cafe?
I've never been to a Rainforest Cafe. I researched it and it's in Michigan, Malta, and the United Arab Emirates there aren't any in Ohio.
19: I left out a but in the last sentence.
That's because they have standards.
We've discussed Easton, Les Wexner's indoor/outdoor mall (or maybe village) here before. There's lots of turnover among the stores, but overall the enterprise appears to be continuing to thrive.
I was in Columbus after Easton was opened, but never went. City Center (RIP) and Tuttle Crossing were too convenient. Columbus was the only mall-y time of my life. As a kid, we were two hours from a mall and it was an event to go some Saturday before Christmas and do our shopping. Hanging out in a mall was one of those things that kids only did in movies, like find aliens or learn karate.
gruen associates are a really surprisingly diverse parctice which believe you me is super super rare in that field. lovely people too.
They renamed the mall of my youth, Montgomery Mall, into "Westfield Shoppingtowne Montgomery", so obviously I can never go there again.
Since I still don't do a lot of crowded indoor things, I haven't been to a mall food court in a while. I miss the diverse food courts where you can pick from a good variety and not have to wait long. I don't miss having to choose between a bunch of awful places or trying to piece enough calories together from pretzels or cookies to get through shopping before going to a real restaurant.
There's a bizarre two mall setup in our neighboring city. One was completely renovated and has high end or very popular restaurants- a well known New Haven pizza place, a sushi converyor, a brew pub, tequila bar, some kind of southern food/bourbon bar, a fancy liquor store, an artsy movie theater, a supermarket, as well as apartments and a hotel and biotech space. Right across the street is a crappy old mall anchored by a Best Buy, a Target, a bad Chinese buffet, some convenience stores, and the DMV (but we're special so we call it the RMV). I have no idea why they're so different or if there are plans to renovate the bad one.
I've always been struck by how a lot of good restaurants in China and Hong Kong are in large, fancy malls. That includes all the Dins Tai Fung I've eaten at except for the Glendale one mentioned in 9. IIRC the one time I went to Japan the restaurant my hosts were most excited to take visitors to was in a mall, also. It seems like malls in China, at least, occupy a very different cultural niche than they do in America. Maybe it's more like the niche they occupied in America several decades ago; at least, it's an existence proof for malls as pleasant, well-lit, well-maintained spaces.
I don't know about China, but in Japan a lot of the big malls are attached to train stations, owned by and even named after the railroad.
I'd never really thought about it, but yes I have eaten some very nice food at malls near the (strangely named) Institute for the Math and Physics of the Universe outside Tokyo.
Here when we eat at the mall, it's at the Cheesecake Factory. No shade, there's a good reason it's the unofficial restaurant of the NBA.
I don't go to our Cheesecake Factory because it started Wendy Bell's journey from standard rich white celebrity obviousness to militia cheerleader.
Also, I feel bad if I eat too much food.
Physics and Math, not Math and Physics. They have their priorities right. (I haven't ever visited there, I just know it's called the IPMU. The Kavli IPMU, these days.)
Huh, you're right. Anyway, if you'r ever there, the vegetable restaurant in the train station mall is kind of delightful. They had a map of Japan showing where all their veggies came from, with photos of the farmers holding their veggies.
Here, I often cut through the Copley Place and Prudential Center malls, especially when the weather is bad, since they provide a way to cross a few large city blocks without venturing outdoors. Copley Place is bizarre: the lighting and ambience is sort of reminiscent of the suburban mall closest to where I grew up, but it's full of ultra-fancy stores, a lot of which are roped off and have a kind of bouncer who only lets in a couple of customers at a time for personalized shopping or something. Also, there rarely seems to be anyone there. The Prudential Center is quite a bit brighter and more pleasant to walk through, despite not being as absurdly upscale.
Institute for the Math and Physics of the Universe outside Tokyo
Inside Tokyo they use cartoon physics.
Abandoned malls are up there with abandoned amusement parks in terms of ethereal morbid appeal. (Small spoiler) Have been watching Last of Us and it had an extended bit in a post-apocalyptic mall.
Amd of course Romero got there first.
As part of the opening of a somewhat early (~1963) big enclosed mall a few miles from my childhood home--Summit Mall--we received via mail a short flexible plastic 45 which provided an awestruck description of the wonders that awaited us. It is apparently still going but with a number of ups and downs and different anchor tenants. The other two later large enclosed malls in the city have closed.
Copley Place / Prudential Center infuriated me at one point because I needed a screwdriver and there was nowhere in the entire mall to buy one, except possibly one knife shop that had a few expensive multitools.
IANASociologist and realize I shouldn't generalize from my childhood in a rural area, but I feel like malls haven't been actual teen hangouts since the 80s. Obviously the article in the OP provides a counterexample or two, but how hard did the author have to look for those? The author acknowledges the rise of Amazon and fall of the middle class but doesn't mention other factors that would also hurt them, like other entertainment options. If kids are just glued to iPads/phones/Nintendo Switch/whatever, why do they need to leave the house for that? Also, fewer teens have jobs than they used to, which probably means less disposable income, and presumably some of those kids who had jobs had jobs at the mall or had friends who did and would hang out nearby or afterwards and that would be rarer now too. Fast Times at Ridgemont High is set in malls a lot but came out in 1982. Mallrats was released in 1995 and the characters are college students, not teens.
Teo and LB are the two American commenters I can think of with teens. I think LB's kids are a little older now but would still be relevant. What do they think?
I can think of two indoor malls we go to now and then for family stuff, all three in the suburbs, plus one more I've run errands in alone recently. (Our very presence at them may seem to contradict my previous paragraph, but (a) we aren't teens, and (b) "now and then" really isn't very often.) At the first, I can't swear I don't see teens a fair amount, but it seems far too upscale for them to spend much time in. The second seems fairly popular and is the only one I'd call typical, despite (or maybe because?) it's accessible by public transportation. We used to go there a lot until covid and we got a car. The third feels dead, sad, and weird, even though there are enough businesses around. It was quiet even before covid and that obviously didn't help. It seems to cater to commuters on the way home more than people who either live in the area or are going to the mall specially.
Personally my usual role when we have to go to something like a mall is to keep the 7-year-old out of trouble - browsing in a bookstore or toy store where I wouldn't mind getting her something small, or playing hide and seek in a store where it doesn't seem too disruptive (not actually covering my eyes and counting, but letting her sneak away and try to hide or to sneak up on me and often pretending not to notice her), or taking her to the playground if there is one and letting her go nuts - while Cassandane shops for whatever she actually is there for.
The open air mall by my house just announced a curfew for teens. After like 6 p.m. you can't be there without an adult. I can't say that I've noticed lots of teens there, but I'm not there often.
There's an ongoing series of shootings and I assume they are trying to avoid one happening there.
Teo and LB are the two American commenters I can think of with teens. I think LB's kids are a little older now but would still be relevant. What do they think?
I think you're pretty much right. My teens definitely don't hang out at malls to any noticeable extent.
I no longer have teens -- I have twenty-somethings who hang out with me in bars in Quebec impressing bartenders with their fondness for Campari. Not sure either ever spent much time in a mall when they were teens.
I have an teen. He doesn't do malls and I'm trying to break a covid-era habit of too much screens.
Also, Campari has like half the alcohol of a regular drink but I think it costs the same. That's how they get you.
That's why you supplement with gin.
That makes more sense, economically.
I have a teen! And almost two more. But no mall.
I'm trying to push our teen to learn how to drive as a life skill. He's not been that interested.
Our teens are also not particularly interested in learning to drive. It definitely seems like some sort of cultural shift since I was a teen.
My Californian is a fluent driver, but my Canadian remains unlicensed. I figure he'll learn sometime.
If I have a theory (and I usually do) it's that it's gotten so much harder for pre-driving-age kids to get anywhere on their own that they haven't built up an appetite for independence. That doesn't really apply to Newt, who was roaming the subways as a small boy, or Moby's kid in Pittsburgh, but maybe elsewhere?
No, he's never been one pushing to go places.
Also "driving age" has changed significantly, especially driving age for driving with friends in the car.
We were violating the open container law as well as MIPing anyway.
Many of my friends in high school had been legally driving since 14 on a school permit.
If I have a theory (and I usually do) it's that it's gotten so much harder for pre-driving-age kids to get anywhere on their own that they haven't built up an appetite for independence.
It was pretty hard to get around Gainesville without a car in the early 90s. I could bike (and I did), but it's a very spread out city.
I think it's the cell phones and connectedness that make it less appealing. You're not so lonely for connection when you're in your house without any friends, because you can just reach out and tap anyone on the shoulder. Sort of the hanging-out-thing from the other day.
Yeah, I think a lot of it is the increased connectivity from internet/phones/etc. Avoiding boredom takes a lot less effort than it used to. It's fashionable to bemoan this change but I think it's actually probably a good thing overall.
If Earth is invaded and the only way to win is to drink warm-ish light beer while driving erratically on a gravel road, then today's kids are not going to have the skills.
If skill at video games is what's required we're golden though.
What if they require texting with your thumbs? We'll all regret adopting qwerty keyboards on our smart phones.
When the world was a better place.
"TV sucks. Let's go out."
"To do what? We are broke.
A few nights ago I was at a middle school chorus concert and one of the songs was a Sixties pop medley. I couldn't help pitying the poor kids being forced to perform songs from fifty years before they were born. Nobody ever forced my peers sing "Ain't Misbehavin'" and in return we spent our money at the local mall.
We sang sixties pop songs. I remember Beach Boys. I would have maybe preferred something from 1920, but I don't know what that might be.
I just listened to the Tommy Bruce cover of Ain't Misbehavin'. Maybe it's poor speaker quality, but it's pretty vile.
I remember watching the Blues Brothers on the "Pop-Up video" show or whatever it was called on VH1 in the 90s where they showed information in pop-up boxes about the movie they were broadcasting, and being surprised to learn that the mall where they had a car chase had only existed in the 60s and 70s and had been abandoned by the time they used it as a setting in the movie. It hadn't occurred to me that malls could look like such fixed landmarks and still be trated like temporary structures.
73: I prefer to think of it as wildly speculating.
I couldn't help pitying the poor kids being forced to perform songs from fifty years before they were born. Nobody ever forced my peers sing "Ain't Misbehavin'" and in return we spent our money at the local mall.
At my old school they put on "Patience" (1881) and "My Fair Lady" (1956) as musicals while I was there, so, you know, it happens.