I think urban malls are still doing quite well in Europe and Asia, probably because their practical use is heightened by sitting directly upon major transit interchanges.
Currently in Europe, malls are packed because they are integrated into the places where people live. Malls in the USA and Canada (where I am from) are off major highways and stroads and are not very accessible.
because in the US, car is dominating and dictating the behavior of the people, not to mention, people live in suburb, there also an unnecessary zoning law. while in other country especially in asian, the mall will be surrounded by apartement, school, office, hospital, walmart, everything that you need. everything is within walking distance it became a mini city, and the mall is sustained by the residents in that mini city while in US, driving to a Mall is like traveling to Europe, no wonder people chose to go to the nearby walmart or costco instead of Mall
As someone from Asia who has travelled the US, mall culture is very different. Giant malls in asia have huge daily traffic because it is right smack in the center of urban areas. They are conveniently in stops between train stations and bus terminals which ensure daily traffic as people commute. It is nearby condominiums, offices and universities too. Nobody needs a car to get to a mall. It's a short ride away. In the US, the suburban setup requires people to have a car and drive to a mall or anywhere. I was stunned people drive from Wal-mart to a mall just across the street. Nobody walked. Maybe because it's on a highway? In asia, you don't even have to buy anything and you'd find yourself inside a mall on your way to everywhere. And once you're inside one, pretty much anyone in the family can spend the whole day doing all sorts of activities and meet again for dinner without stepping out. When the day is done, a bus or train is just in one of the exits if you don't have a car. Also, I am amazed how the US have such huge parking lots outside the mall -which means driving to the next building. Asia is quite crammed and rarely will one see outside parking as most are underground or are built attached to the building. I love both, the malls in Asia just seem a lot more inviting and with so much going on for everyone, not just shopping. And for all of the above, even with online platforms, malls aren't going anytime soon this side of the world.
There are both kinds. In Japan, *some* malls are integrated into transport (Tokyo Station is basically a gigantic mall with some train platforms). But they also have the large out-of-town malls that can only be reached by car, most of them operated by Aeon.
We did have those. There were tons of malls right in the middle of big cities. And they did great in the 80s and 90s. The problem no one ever seems to talk about with dying malls is the ABSURD over-saturation of retail shopping in the US and Canada. Endless strip malls, big box stores, indoor malls, outdoor malls, gift shops, grocery stores, department stores, electronic stores, and on and on and on. There is a limit to how much a consumer is going to consume, but greedy developers don't seem to understand this so they keep building stores nobody wants and then complain about them being empty.
As someone living in Asia, where malls continue to thrive, hearing about the decline of malls in the USA and Canada always intrigues me. Have you ever thought of doing a comparison of how malls here and over there are built and how some of these contribute to their continued relevance here versus their decline over there? The one factor I can think of is that our malls are better integrated into public transport, though there has to be more to it than that.
It's not just public transport. All the shops and areas you want to go to are either walkable or integrated with transit such that the idea of going shopping somewhere is not a huge adventure that requires a drive. And this factor makes it so middle and high school students who can't drive can actually meet up in malls after school or on the weekend easily.
This is something I usually think about as well. I'm from Brazil, and even though mall culture was never as strong here as in the US and in recent years new styles of retail spaces have been popping up across the country, malls in our cities are still doing fine. Around here I believe criminality rates and ethnicity play a big role in their success. Brazilian shopping streets are usually quite dirty and prone to criminality, and usually white richer people don't want to circulate around black or mixed-race people that have a lower income and are forced to buy in budget stores in cities' downtown areas.
Here in LaLa Land, California shopping malls are thriving - yet barely integrated to public transportation, so you must be correct - there's is more to it.
I'm guessing the fake trees are probably a response to the lesson learned by West Edmonton Mall, which single-handedly introduced cockroaches to the city in their imported palm trees.
As someone who lives in Edmonton I was unaware that this was the reason for the removal of the palm trees. Nowadays the mall just has a dull look to it, unlike the charm it gave off back when I was a kid.
Lot in US certainly can do well as a lot of people in comments have said the problem is that we became over-saturated with malls and malls became bigger and bigger. And oftentimes there's a big commute to them. Malls large work better and urban centers so as long as isn't over saturated. Small malls like small outlets and small indoor malls can actually work well in more rural areas.
@@TheNobleFive there are a lot of malls in Georgia that aren't doing well that are dying out and yet you're right there are some malls that are doing well. When new malls are built they often outdo their competition. The stranger things Mall is a dying Mall. I know that was proposed to change it into a lifestyle community center. Basically a mall plus apartments.
There are plenty in Europe and, in some places, Canada as well. The problem of the U.S. is that they are propped up on third world infrastructure, so of course people prefer online shopping there now that it's available.
I once took a potted 18" tall Areca palm into reception where I work (hotel in the UK). 8 years later it was 12 foot tall, with the same diameter, and took up about 20% of the room. I think that plant earned us more positive reviews than any of our team's efforts.
I should add the plant (it's name is Bert) is still going strong - I had to find it a new home due to the C*vid lockdown, and a local botanical garden came and rescued it.
Far less dystopian than a single corporation controlling 56.7% of all online retail purchases in 2021, blanketing the landscape with its warehouses, that pushes workers to their literal breaking points, with twice the number of injuries as their competitors. A corporation that made governments danced for their offices like trained monkeys, throwing corporate welfare at them, as their boss burns money on spaceflight.
Because it's a mall? Like saying the Roman baths were dystopian because how dare they put "fake ponds" under a roof. The past week definitely reminds people in the north of the U.S., and in Canada why you have places like this still exist.
I've been to malls in Asia with real plants inside. It depends on the luxury level of said mall. Cheap neighborhood malls usually uses fake plants, high end condo malls and destination malls usually have real plants.
Why would cheap malls use artificial plants when plants aren't expensive to upkeep? if it's about the cost of maintenance (which is still reasonably cheap) there are plenty of plants that require very little care.
@@ArchOfWinter That is sad. I live in Australia and most places like malls or even hospitals have real plants. it makes such a difference and improves the air quality. you really notice the difference when you walk into a place with no plants.
In Germany and France malls are doing very well despite the fakeness. However malls are always in walking distance of neighbourhoods, their almost always surrounded by shopping streets and food stores, they tend to have a park nearby and they’re easily accessible by public transport.
what are u talking about? malls are doing absolutly bad in germany. Famous malls like karstadt and galeria kaufhof need constant help from the state, quote from wikipedia: "In January 2022, it received €250 million in federal aid, after having received a €460 million loan from the economic stabilization fund in 2021.In November, the chain announced it had filed for the German equivalent of insolvency for a second time and planned to close a third of its 131 locations" It's not just due to covid, they struggled for years cause nobody shops in them anymore. Ordering from amazon is super easy in germany. please stop spreading lies.
@@mb2776 I’m from Germany. Karstadt and Galeria Kaufhof are not Einkaufszentren (= malls) but Warenhäuser or also called Kaufhäuser (= big department store). Since Galeria Kaufhof orders and manages everything by itself there is a greater risk of mismanagement and high costs. These risks came to fruition [edit: for some of the Kaufhäuser and those in question] failed. Warenhäuser like that are dying in Germany but not Einkaufszentren. With an Einkaufszentrum these risks are minimised since it’s run by individual Business and only the administration is done centrally. They are still very much successful. So no I’m not lying but you do. So fact check before and also make sure you check the words in question before talking.
@@SharkFishSF could be. Believe me however they are almost always full and vibrant. If you come to Europe you’ll see. Also they are so close to residential areas I can literally walk to three by foot. I guess in the US the problem is that the mall itself is the destination and there’s nothing around it. In Europe you can afterwards decide to go to the park, go to the shopping streets, or too more stores, cafes or diners nearby. Only few malls in Germany are in areas remote from people.
I love the term Disneyfication. Whenever I see an overly complex environment that is fake, I reflexively start wondering how much extra I'm paying on anything I spend here just for the privilege of being in this cartoon environment
On a purely emotional level, not thinking about it intellectually, I have a sense of despair that wells up in malls... especially before Christmas... there must be no more depressing place in the world than a mall before Christmas, with the pop Christmas music playing... side from the fact that they are physically inconvenient, I just need to get a thing, and to get that thing you have to go to the mall, park, walk to the mall, walk in the mall, and everything again in the reverse direction... instead of dashing into a shop for 5 minutes it takes an hour or two... Apparently there are people who like to spend time there, they go there to spend time... but not me....
@@sd-ch2cq I've done that too :) even if you dont want or need anything, you feel obligated that you must buy something when leaving... I think that's half of their base business model :)
Maybe malls in US are dying but in Asia its thriving, thats because, malls in Asia are more than just a department store, its a complex which integrates community function. It has a church, clinics, drugstores, family entertainment and even government office where you can get your licences and the like, and recently its being integrated with condos too and it makes life very convenient. Ps, they dont use fake plants here, they have actual gardens and more recently malls have dog parks too.
LOL. ME FROM INDONESIA SOUTH EAST ASIA MANY MALL IN MY PLACE GO BANKRUPT BECAUSE ONLINE SHOP ONLINE SHOP GOODS IS MORE CHEAP THAN MALL MALL IS GOOD FOR PICNIC NOT BUY SOMETHING
@@onlyyoucanstopevil9024 first off, the caps lock is designed to be toggled, you can turn it off. Second, which part of indonesia is that? Afaik malls are doing fine here
Here in the Philippines, malls are often filled with people, which can cause traffic jams, but they are easily accessible by public transport, and if you live nearby you probably don’t even need to drive a car there. You basically have everything there (there’s even a large church next to one of its parking lots)
I studied Archaeology and a lot of Archaeology is the history of Architecture. The whole point of most large scale building was to be Surreal. Faux nature was everywhere. The Papyrus columns of Karnak. The ponds, pools and gardens of Mesopotamia. There are references to scents being used to influence people back into ancient India. The complex of Stonehenge was designed to move people between the common and spirit worlds. Architecture was to inspire, terrify, impress. As other commenters have noted malls are doing fine in other parts of the world, so the nature of what a mall is cannot be the whole explanation for why the seem to be fading in the US. You seem very enamoured of Urban areas. But the shopping is failing there at the same rates as malls. Large stretches of shopping districts in NYC are half empty. I tend to attribute it to the general shift to internet shopping. There are Amazon Lockers all over. Amazon Go Stores are a thing. An issue I don't think you discuss enough is the Finance end of building. You can call buildings a physical embodiment of a business idea. Many malls failed because of poor financial management, and outright Shenanigans with the books. Like all retail, these are not high margin businesses and cannot tolerate huge debt loads.
Malls work outside the us cs they usually dont work like us malls that are in the middle of nowhere in the suburbs where youre forced to drive to into shitty parki
No-one ever seems to equate the fact that US consumers have the largest retail footprint per capita of any major market, and why some urban cores and shopping malls are dying. The USA has 24 retail square feet per person, Canada 17, Australia 11, UK 5, Taiwan 2, Indonesia 1. We have so much retail failing in the USA because there is a massive glut of it even compared to similarly wealthy countries. Add in any amount of Online Sales, and a lot of the excess retail expenditure needs to disappear as the bubble pops. Buying more square feet of retail space only makes sense when it provides value to the customer, and whether its inconvenient locations or poor experience a lot of old retail has to die and be reformed into better retail for the American public. P.S. I don't want anyone to loose their jobs, but find some of the moaning about different successful or dying businesses in the USA to sometimes be too narrow in the discussion of why there is disruption in the retail market. These poorly constructed discussions of retail death often lead to disasters like the "American Dream" mall which actually had several owners, developers, shakey fraud and corruption scandals, and random redesigns during its 15year construction, and tripple 5 weirdly leveraged and mismanaged their other mega malls to some extent to take control of the "American Dream" right before Covid19.😅 The American glut in retail space has a lot to due with weird subsidies and government corruption, and the blight of dead malls is the tragic result.
Yes PLEASE. Cruise ships are the most polluting form of travel. For all of Sweden's green reputation, some Swedes think it is their birthright to take their cars on the Baltic Cruise ships. Made my MIL angry because I refused to go with them and their car on a cruise to Finland.
@@shinnam that is a flat out lie. Cruise ships are nowhere near the most "polluting form of travel". They put more money into diminishing their environmental impact than practically any other major consumer corporation on the planet. And what you are talking about in Sweden is NOT a cruise ship it is a car ferry. Even then they use some of the most efficient cleanest burning engines in the industrialized world. You are speaking from a place of complete ignorance when you say this kind of thing.
It's a shame the European style shopping arcades never became a thing in north america. It would have made so much sense with the more extreme weather.
We call them outlet malls and what killed them is that it's all shit architecture. Arcades at least have the benefits of reusing existing buildings but here in the states they are all new built construction and most of the time new built is often designed by either modern arts majors or people who are just getting their start in architecture
There’s an arcade in the food court of the mall where I live, the space invaders game in it always has a voice coming out of it that you can hear from quite a while away
in Mexico shopping malls are doing relatively ok due to 2 factors: Online shopping is still pretty insecure, the logistics part of it is still amess and everything is heavily taxed so it really does not saves you money, is only used to buy things you simply cannot get in physical stores, second, malls aren't in suburbs but in centric urban zones with plenty of people passing by daily, lastly, the fall of malls in America is more a sign of shrinking middle class than a sign of online shopping overtaking it.
You always use Chicago where literally every other channel would use Manhattan as an example. Every video I love you for this and will never stop praising you for it.
Me and my gf use to stay in the mall for hours with those benches when I didn't see a bench to sit down and had to walk to the middle of the mall to get a seat...I second guessed and said we'll I guess I'll just go home didn't feel like walking that far
Many were removed because of covid (so you wouldn't sit around and would go away as soon as you're done) but also because of teenager hanging out on them. In their minds, they don't shop, they just walk and sit around. So they got rid of them, disregarding elderly or sick who might need to sit down to relieve their legs. Many malls here removed benched so they could put small stall/boots there. More stuff for customers to buy
I was a Mall Rat back in the 80's. They were considered a cool place to hang out back then because no other environment like an indoor mall existed. Popular media made them even more popular. But over the years the selection of stores has dwindled to the point that there is nothing for a man to need or want at the mall. Anchor stores like Sears and Mervyns died, the cutlery and pipe tobacco shops went away and now all that's left are jewelry stores, women's clothing, footwear and cellphone kiosks. Our local mall put in an arcade and bowling alley but it just won't work. The kids that attend places like arcades are generally not wanted in the other stores.
Yep. The kids were future customers... chase away the kids!! And bored kids at the mall = not fun for the adults either. A really nice mall in Dallas was for artist and creative types. It was a conversion of several buildings - it did NOT have a single level floor, especially upstairs. So you were constantly going up or down a few steps. But it was still great. An artist could afford a small space and a low price. There was food, things to buy and do. Watch people create things, build things. The owners sold the building/land for something else, that later fell through The Mall did not die from lack of customers. It was murdered by greed. It remained a fenced-in area for about 15 years. becoming a parking lot and eventually generic box-shaped apartment buildings. Then Valley View died a horribly slow death. It became the place for artists years later. A dozen or so real stores remained. The rest were small mom-pop stores, then artists - dozen of small galleries, artwork shops, etc. Pay month to month. It too, was mostly shut down in 2018, and demolition started in 2019. 4 years later in 2023 - they are STILL doing demolition to the very last bit of the mall. The area looks like garbage, a waste land in the middle of Dallas.
Regarding the Cinnabon smell, that too is a big trick. They have locations in malls and airports on purpose so that the smells can linger. Cinnamon rolls are baked every 30 minutes at minimum, and to keep the scent in the air, some stores even warm up sheets of just cinnamon and brown sugar! Ovens are also placed near the front of the store so that the smell "escapes" when employees open the oven doors. Franchisees of the bakery are told to buy the "weakest hood possible" that is legal for their ovens. With the rise of online shopping and of course the pandemic, malls have struggled and shuttered. Now they're reinventing themselves to be more appealing to everyone, whether it be to include indoor water parks and theme parks like the American Dream Meadowlands or a housing development. But Cheesecake Factory is the peak of American malls. Its decor screams "Let's further treat ourselves and eat here before shopping some more". Sure they're weird with their dictionary-sized menus, but that's what makes them stand out. The first restaurant opened in 1978 in Beverly Hills, and the rest is history. I hope to open just a street of Cheesecake Factories but they're all different designs with statues of me.
When I worked at Mrs Field’s there was an overhead exhaust fan next to the oven that automatically turned on when we opened the oven. So we barely smelled anything, but if you walked past you got a good whiff.
Back in the old days, the Ayala mall in cebu used to have drop-off points with wasted space in its Bohol (street) and Luzon (avenue) fronts, a boring lagoon in its Mindanao-Biliran front, and a massive parking lot on the Rosales side that was connected with the basement parking and the old Rustan's supermarket (which wasn't even connected to the actual department store on the ground floor in front of the elevators). Nowadays, the Bohol front has since been developed into a huge BPO office building that cleverly incorporates the old entrance into its design, the Luzon front (the latest one to be developed) is a tall condo with convenient access to the redesigned mall entrance including spaces for new shops on the 2nd and 3rd floors, the Mindanao-Biliran (earliest one to be developed) front is now an outdoor area with many restaurants, the Rosales side is the new annex with a slender condo tower with direct access to the 4th floor of it as well as the new and improved Rustan's department store AND supermarket. As for the old Rosales parking lot, what remains of it has been repaved and incorporated into the mall's existing basement parking with a modern grand entrance drop-off point and manicured garden of square-shaped shrubs.
As for SM in nearby reclamation area, the mall (which catered to the lower classes) looked like your typical generic suburban 1980s American shopping mall (there was a huge parking lot in front of its north front) until they renovated the mall to cater to the middle-upper class, built the Northwing, cinemas (which included Cebu's only IMAX theatre), & its new parking structure. What remains of the parking lot was only there until now because of several delays to the undertaking of the expansion plan (they had to build a new steel parking structure next to Radisson in order to compensate for the predicted loss of parking space that the future construction would bring). The expansion would make the existing parking structure bigger and add more shops to the mall.
The scent thing explains why malls give me migraines. I'm very sensitive to scents. I have to wear allergy masks in malls, especially around stores that sell scented candles, shampoos, perfumes, etc. I like malls for the most part, but there are only a few near me and the main reason they get so much business is because it's the only places where those stores can be found. Some places are in strip malls or shopping districts, but traditional malls tend to have outlets, unique food, repair places for various things, and it's often just practical compared to having to drive between shopping districts to get to everything you need. Where at a mall, you can get a new watch battery, try a bubble tea, eat a burger, and buy all your Christmas presents at the same place. As someone with chronic pain and fatigue, I like the idea of not having to go outside in the snow/rain and travel long distances to get everything I need, but I also find it much easier to get migraines due to things like scented products, fluorescent lights, and the large crowds.
I watched a thing about the hystory of a high end brand store that was big in the 00s and the 90s. the use of chemical sents to manipulate you in malls is far far far from new. It made the news years ago. I wish i could remeber the damnn docutmentry it was a good watch
Saaaaame. Scents give me histamine attacks, headache, nausea, etc. Candle stores are actively dangerous, I feel sorry for the employees. Even if they're not as sensitive they're huffing these chemicals in day in, day out
@ Joy L, I feel horrible for you. When I lost my scent temporarily after covid, I realized how much I actually enjoy smelling everything everywhere I go. I’m grateful it came back in full.
@Joylox - Yes, I thought of people like you the moment he mentioned the scent thing! I always thought it was just the overwhelm - too many people, too much noise, too bright/flashing lights - that bothered the folks I know who can’t abide malls. But for some, it’s probably the scents. I just had no idea that it was so damn ubiquitous! I still remember the day I ordered my first item online. I knew it was a watershed moment. Within a few years, I was doing almost all of my shopping online. And part of the reason is that it’s so much less stressful to shop that way, for just about anything other than possibly clothes (though even that is arguable for us plus sized folks). Although there is a distinct lack of Cinnabon stands inside my home. ;)
I recommend for you to breath through your mouth when you smell strong scents in order to prevent migraine attacks. It helped me prevent my attacks! The nose smells scents too good, but my mouth cannot smell anything
I don’t know why shopping malls moved away from the original design: to be an entire community unto itself, with housing, recreation, shopping, and entertainment all in one spot. I used to work at old orchard mall. That place should have housing units on top of the retail stores!
They never had an "original design", they were always places to just house retail stores. Gruen wanted them have housing/recreation but it was never actually added to any designs. Besides housing in malls would be really weird, since these places usually existed on the outskirts of cookie cutter suburbs, having just some random apartments in a shopping mall would just be really weird, not to mention the amount of noise pollution would probably make them horrible to live in.
we have lots of malls here in malaysia's capital where flats/hotels would be built atop malls! its pretty cool i never thought it would be that uncommon though
The thumbnail is a picture of the Villagio mall in Doha, Qatar. It's a huge mall themed after Venice, Italy. Yes I know that re-recreating Venice in a mall in the middle of the desert is a crazy idea, but that's the Gulf for you. Malls are a cornerstone of society in the Gulf, it's where we tend to hang out with our friends, have business lunches, and do our shopping. During the super hot summer months, malls are literally the only public place where you can hang out and meetup with others, that's how essential malls are in our part of the world.
I’m 21 and from the area, for a lot of local kids this place was legend for so long. We heard whispers of indoor skiing and things about the owners of mall America, all by someone’s uncles best friend you know. To see it come to life and be what it is today when for so long it was just “that thing on the side of the turnpike” is insane.
I work less than two miles from this thing and i've never been there. I have to drive basically right past it to get on route 3 every day and i was terrified it was going to make traffic unbearable. Nope, no difference at all cause nobody ever goes there. :) I'm buying a condo in Little Ferry now so I won't have to commute anymore, less than five miles from this thing but I will never go there. Death to malls!
Malls are well-patronized in Southern California. My mall has a youth theater group, jewelry repair, massage therapy, an alterations lady, & a cosmetology school, as well as stores and a food court. It's cool in the summer and serves the community well.
The reason why Victor Gruen turned his back on malls was because developers refused to include on-site housing, offices both workplaces and professional office buildings, public services such as police, fire, libraries, etc, and recreational amenities.
Malls in North America don't work because you have to DRIVE to them. The mall is not the problem, it's the suburban hellscape they are built in. If you can order something online, why would you want to drive somewhere? Malls in Europe and Asia are doing well because they are generally built inside active town centres. Most malls in Asia are built alongside massive condo housing buildings. This guarantees a customer base that only has to go down the elevator or take a short walk to reach the shopping centre. Malls in America don’t work because of an ridiculously rigid zoning. The entire concept of the suburb needs to die.
The American Dream mall looks straight out of the 80’s tbh. But not all malls/shopping centers are bad. The Easton Town Center in Columbus, OH is quite nice with its mixture of outdoor shopping streets and a smaller more traditional mall location in the middle. The Kirkland shop center/Scottsdale commons in Phoenix/Scottsdale is another great shopping location that is built to resemble outdoor shopping rather than a traditional mall.
in my country, we built our first mall in the 80s with the intent to have events and concerts. so every entrance leads a straight line to the middle where there is a mobile stage. they had to repaint and cover up all the 80s styles and design choices to achieve a more 2010s look but they have still never been able to get EVERY room rented to a business :/ they even made a starbucks kiosk where the meeting place is to get more people to come in. i think it needs an outdoor space, malls that came after them have been able to achieve this by making the meeting places simply roofless
One time I went to a mall in Florida that was part indoor part outdoor. Most of what they sold was knock off items so I don't think they're around anymore, but it was neat to see the blending of a somewhat traditional mall, with a farmers market. Upon looking it up, apparently it was more of a flea market than a mall, but it was definitely mall like. Of course the biggest mall I remember in Florida was the one that had Wannado City in it, a whole miniature city designed for kids to learn what it was like to have certain careers, with things like a flight simulator, fire department, grocery store, bakery, and even a small robotics lab, just to name a few. It was like if you took Disney's Epcot, made it for ages 5-10, and put it in a mall. Parents liked it for babysitting and the educational aspects, while kids loved getting to try new things and learn new skills. I'd go with my cousins that lived near there, and it was fun. I'm in Canada, and we don't have anything like that near me. But I like how most of our malls have skylights, and it's more or less a way to shop without worrying about snow or rain like you would with the more common strip malls and shopping districts. It's like the same reasons people like Ikea. You can get all sorts of useful things, and food, in the same place without having to drive between stores, restaurants, and other places you might need to go, pretty much everything is right there.
I can actually imagine a mall that I like. Here is how it would have to be. First, it would be tightly integrated into the public transport network of the city. Ideally, one floor would actually be the main transport interchange of the city, where you would transfer between metro lines and catch trams and busses. Second, it would be integrated into the city and have no dead space for parking. Ideally it would even offer shortcut walking paths between high traffic places that aren't in the mall. The people who want to access it by car would park kinda far away and ride in on a free parking shuttle train. Third, it would offer legit public spaces, not just commercial stuff where people are fleeced. At its core would be the central public library, which would host various free events like poetry readings and visiting authors. There should also be something like a skate park. A food court is actually a really good feature in current malls, but it has the potential to be much better if it felt more like a park with many tables and benches. And there would also be a big co-working space and a maker space, which would be commercial, but where ordinary folks could buy a membership and use them. Finally, I would want it to be continuous with genuine public spaces like a botanical garden, which could be half indoor and half outside. And in the public areas there would be no music. Music tells everyone "You don't own this place!" If the mall were actually a nice place for the public to be, then the rent paid by the stores could cover the admittedly high costs of the facilities that I would want this mall to have.
My dentist is in a mall, and it's largely a "professional centre" type mall, with an immigration office, ultrasound clinic, and a small food court, more than stores. I'd personally love to see more buildings like the library at a university I went to. It's a big square with an open middle (later replaced with a skylight to keep snow out and save on heating) and the middle area features a food court with plenty of benches and tables. Then the areas around it have offices, classrooms, a tech area with 3D printers and regular printers, a music room with a digital piano and CD/Tape/Record player, and a collaboration room made for group projects and meetings that has a mini kitchen attached. It's an old building, but one of my favourites, and I'd like to see that style come back in, but perhaps even with stores on the outside instead of office and library space. It's easy to navigate, easy to see where things are through the windows in the open middle part, and central elevators make it easy to access all the rooms. The windows also have desks around them for people to be able to sit down and watch the people walking by, or ignore what's below to focus on working. It's rather brutalist compared to today's standard, but it's a brilliant design in theory, and with a few changes, it would be a wonderful mall design.
If you ever get the chance to go to Paris, check out Les Halles - it ticks almost all of the boxes you laid out. The downsides is it's intensely busy most days, loud echoey acoustics, kinda confusing layout, and it could do with more light wells.
Except for the library and skate park idea you just described exactly what train stations are like in Tokyo and surrounding cities. Big hubs with community stuff, shopping, restaurants, and businesses. Intereconnected to tons of stuff through underground floors and above ground floors.
My mom has worked in a high end mall a little outside of Chicago in Vernon hills my whole life and it’s amazing how through the years it became more and more deserted and desolate. They have been renovating it for years I assume in an attempt to attract people back, but now I hear they are converting it to an outdoor mall. Interesting isn’t it
There are Malls doing well in NJ but I feel that many of them cater to rich clientele by having lots of designer stores in addition to the more affordable ones. The Canada Goose stores have huge lines outside whenever I visit the mall.
I’m from NJ. Some malls are fine, such as King of Prussia mall outside of Philadelphia, one of the largest malls in the country. There are many high end brands. It’s yuge 🇺🇸
exactly the same concept some malls in germany changed to. like 20 years ago, they had basic stores and stuff but became more and more brand shops and designer stores. like skateshops but only with clothing items and stuff like that.
I helped build this mall and live in this area Here’s the biggest problem It’s literally in the middle of nowhere There’s nothing around it, there’s no other reason to go over to that part of the meadow lands except to go to this mall. You also have to use the NJ Turnpike (I-95) to get there which means you have to be mindful of the time and traffic It’s in an awful location
"Floors of epoxy made to look like stone" is why malls always had a funny, strange sort of smell to me that I could never quite place; it was epoxy fumes (I am sensitive to that sort of thing).
I think a biggest factor as to why malls in Asia still thrives (i.e., Philippine Malls), is the environment/climate. Compare to western region, Most Asian countries are in a hot environment so the masses are inclined to visit malls which has air-conditioning. That's why Philippine Malls are massive and grand in scale since numerous people often visits these malls. But also adding attractions like instagrammable places/decor will really bring alot of people.
Thanks for this analysis Stewart. I don't think the "Disneyfication" of shopping malls is going to save them. The internet, combined with reduced reliance on cars over increasing concern about the changing climate, and the isolation brought about by the Covid pandemic, have fundamentally reshaped the way most people shop. Speaking personally, this has been a godsend. Due to mobility problems I can no longer get around very easily, and it would be impossible for me to even get groceries into my apartment without considerable assistance, i.e. somebody doing it for me. Growing up in Manhattan in the 1960s, I wasn't exposed to shopping malls. Our shopping habits were more in line with 19th century practices: local stores for groceries and other day-to-day needs and big department stores for clothing, appliances, etc. I don't remember when I made my first visit to an enclosed shopping mall, but I was probably in my 20s, and I remember finding it unpleasant. The vast paved parking lot was hideous, and the interior environment of the mall itself was so artificial that I just wanted to get out as quickly as possible. I also find the musak, odors, and other subliminal marketing practices manipulative and even coercive. I want nothing to do with them. As an aside, I live a few blocks away from the "Arcade Providence", which is purportedly the oldest shopping mall in North America. It was built in 1828 as an interior street lit by skylights and flanked by three stories of stores and fronted at each end by monumental Greek Revival porticos. The upper story stores were never viable as retail spaces, and they were recently converted into 48 micro-apartments. They are full and have a long waiting list, as do the first story stores. This may offer some ideas on how to deal with defunct shopping malls today.
It's funny you mention cars. There used to be a nearly direct bus route from my suburban area to the nearest mall (now I'd need to connect to a different one). I loved it, because I didn't have to worry about getting a ride to 5 different stores for Christmas shopping, when everything was right there, or I'd go with friends and we'd carpool even if we didn't want to go to the same stores. We could eat together in the food court much easier than trying to find one restaurant we all liked, and it was a lot more efficient than trying to get to multiple stores half way across the county from each other, because everything's right there. One mall, the one closer to me is doing okay, and there's another that seems to be mostly kid focused now (with multiple kids clothing stores, a toy store, and candy shop), but the bigger mall that would take me 2 hours to bus to (or 45 minutes by car) has had a lot of places close in it, and move to a nearby shopping district, or go out of business (like Target Canada, which still has a lot of their old stores empty). I don't like shopping districts because you have to drive between stores, and it sucks if it's raining or snowing (especially as for me, rain makes my joint pain worse). I wish malls would come back as the one stop shop idea, but with accessibility in mind, not just marketing schemes. I actually need to go to the mall to get my mom's watch fixed. The things I go for are things that can't easily be done online, like trying on clothes, getting bubble tea, and taking things in for repairs (that's the only place where you can get watches, Apple products, and some other electronics repaired in my area).
I grew up in the shadow of the American Dream Mall, called Xanadu back then. I then worked really close to it, watching it grow. Then I moved away, living in other parts of the country and finally I just moved back to the area. I live on Long Island now and hope to make it out to it someday. While the indoor mall in indeed dying, the outdoor mall is thriving and even showing growth.
Well I'm glad someone in the US is finally understanding this. We have a 'mall' in my city in the UK (we call it a shopping centre). But the difference is: it's right in the old city centre with all sorts of other businesses around it. Buses from all over the city terminate right next to it it has it's own long distance bus terminal to get to nearby towns and cities It has it's own underground parking with elevators straight into the shopping level. It has an apartment tower on site. it ends up kind of like another shopping street that happens to be inside. It's a hideous, brutalist construction, but it's still busy every day.
As an Architect I Love your in depth content as always. When you covered the Indoor Snow Ski Mountain I could not help to think the amount of Energy that it takes to maintain that "Ideal" experience of going down that indoor slope covered with snow. The things we do for the ideal experience.
Now I wonder, would we need less energy if everyone of the customers would travel to a place with real snow? Or is skiing only allowed to "snow people" because their ancestors moved their centuries ago? :)
To be fair to the American Dream mall, it wasn't Triple Five's original idea. The reason it took so long was because it changed owners three times (Started with Mills Corporation, then Colony Capital, and finally Triple Five), financial issues resulting from the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the Great Recession, construction delays, and legal challenges aka classic NJ politics. An indoor ski slope may sound silly, but Dubai has one at the Mall of the Emirates that opened first in 2005. They added it to their mall because Dubai is a hot climate. The idea behind the one at the NJ mall is for those who live in NYC who don't want to (or can't) travel far to ski, as those in the city can take a NJT bus directly there from the PABT. An example of an American mall that's thriving without needing to do anything outrageous is Newport Centre mall in downtown Jersey City. The location is quite accessible thanks to dollar vans/shuttle buses (that go up to the GWB), the PATH (from Newport station; goes to Midtown and Lower Manhattan, and Newark), and the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail (which serves most of Hudson County). The mall opened in 1987, and the area around it flourished and became urbanized because of it. Heck, they still have SEARS!
Sorry this comment is off-topic but you should do a video or series on the Palm Springs area. I would love to see your take on history of modern architecture here, and the Hollywood and political connections. I heard Disney bought a HUGE tract of land across the street from the Sunnylands estate for a residential development. You know you’re just looking for an excuse for a desert vacation next year!
I find it really interesting that malls are dying out in America of all places, while they still trive in my country, Latvia, with population smaller than most capital cities out there. Sure there are some failed projects in Riga, but in general, they are busy almost every day.
Because the digitization of society hasn't hit you guys as hard yet. Give it a few more years. The vast and sparsely populated landscapes of NA made it ground 0 for digital spaces to be favoured over physical ones.
@@tiggytheimpaler5483 *because malls are available by walking or public transport everywhere in the world except the US that separated housing and shops. Digitalisation doesn't explain everything, no matter how much lazy you can be , there would still be a lot of people going to the mall because they prefer seeing the products
Don't read to much into this "malls are dying in America" narrative. LOTS of super regional malls in this country are still thriving and are packed with shoppers. I used to live in Atlanta and have also lived in Houston and I can take you to a dozen malls between those two cities that are CONSTANTLY packed with shoppers and have store front occupancy ratings well over 95%. Malls in America are simply evolving. Retail of all kind was overbuilt from the 70s through the 90s and we have seen a market correction of that trend over the last 20 years. But malls that reinvested, reinvented and adapted themselves to the new market are not going away or disappearing unless they are in a local market that has somehow moved away from them because of a demographic shift.
@@ashleighelizabeth5916 yep but that being said the "eerie" feeling that malls produce (like being a scene of an horror movie/video game) is not that much understood outside america because they are not subject of these slow dying process.
I just wish malls incorporated more creeks, plant walls/waterfalls, a mini amusement park, indoor swim park, and arcade, and a skating rink, affordable gym membership- I would definitely go to the mall more often especially if they had more healthy eating options there- not just fast food like chik-fil-a.
As a European with much more shops on the streets, it's actually nice to just shop outside if you're willing to do the effort. I love feeling each season as I stroll through the streets. Not everything has to be in perfect climate-control.
North American cities are beginning to adopt 5-over-1 neighbourhoods with a commercial layer on the ground floor, so that people can just walk to the stores below their apartments easily, or in their neighbourhoods. A much more European approach. That's actually part of what's killing malls. American malls existed for suburbs, where the only way to get to a store was to drive so all the stores may as well be in the same place, but urbanization is making them nearly as useless as online shopping.
I live in Peru, currently in the capital and I have been able to notice the differences of these "malls" from the markets that were in my home town. In the markets things were simple, some posts and a high ceiling so that there was space to stack the boxes of fruit and other products, the floor was almost always dirty and in fact it used to be just soaked earth. You would see fruit peels on the floor and they would yell at you from time to time to let the "porters" pass (men who carried boxes on their backs from one side to the other), there was a lot of noise and movement, sometimes I ended up with a bruise for bump into someone Then I came to the modern malls of the capital, everything was clean, shiny, acclimatized, very fake and people also behaved differently so I had to get used to it.
It’s called Progress. We can’t all be old fashioned Luddites. You accept the good and the bad (Pray the Good outweighs the Bad). The one thing constant is Change.
Pero si la tecnología solo magnifica la cultura que ya se tiene en el Perú. Si las provincias recibieran el mismo avance tecnológico seguramente sus supermercados lucirían parecidos. No creo que ses un problema que se pueda resolver desde afuera hacia dentro sino al revés
@@everab1209en todos los departamentos hay minimo 1 mall xd no se porq la gente piensa que Lima es Tokio y el resto del Peru tribus alejadas de la civilizacion
@@XTheLolX301 Pues no es como que sea tan falso. Solo que el Internet ha hecho trabajo acortando esas brechas. ¿Has visitado distritos de sierra que no sean la capital?
My first thought was "why?", but then you said it has been in construction for 16 years. It looks like a cool place. My country has had an indoor ski slope for as long as I can remember, so I was surprised it was the first in North America. It is still functioning as far as I know, so it could work. It looks like a cool place to go for entertainment. Imagine if you had a fast train directly into the mall or next to it! You could go there, enjoy the day and just go back. In Rotterdam (Netherlands) they also have a trainstop next to a big shopping centre, and it is always a busy stop.
Im in AZ, and like elsewhere in the US, malls here are dying, but i was shocked to visit one that was actually a little busy, and i wish i knew why. Maybe because for the most part its not enormous, most of the store fronts are utilized, and the movie theater is one of the fancy ones with reclining chairs. In AZ, there's a huge advantage to malls in the summer, but I know for myself, the idea of wandering a mall and seeing all these objects i can't afford is just existentially depressing. I buy what few things i need online instead.
Here in Brazil, the malls still thriving, because the malls are a safe space where you can go shopping without the fear of getting robbed, not only by the public but by the shop owners too. In special in cities like mine (São Paulo) where space is limited, so in a place with size of an 1/5 of a square you can fit inside an entire square with market, barbers, shop, restaurants, cinema etc.
I rarely do any shopping in a mall. The clothing stores don't have my size, usually, and there's a lot of stuff in malls that is just overpriced junk. If I do go into a shooping mall, it's to shop at Walmart, if it's one of the anchor stores. The rest of the time, I get my stuff online. There is a small neighbourhood mall very close to where I live (it's pretty much just steps away), and it thrives because it sits next to an apartment complex of about 10 buildings where a lot of retirees live. It has pretty much everything that retirees might need on a routine basis as there is a chain grocery store, a chain drug store and medical supplies store, a chain footwear store, and a small sit-down restaurant, to name. Many of the stores and food vendors outside of the grocery store or drug store are small independent shops. There are two larger malls, one at each end of the city. All of these malls are doing well because they are located close to large residential neighbourhoods, and they don't try to be all things to all people. We did have two other malls, but both closed because of changing demographics in their respective neighbourhoods. The downtown shopping mall that was opened in 1989 also closed for a variety of reasons including the arrival of online shopping and the lack of readily available, free parking that is plentiful at typical suburban shopping malls. Pretty well all of the downtown malls in Ontario, Canada closed up for the same reasons. Initially, they were seen as a way to shore up crumbling tax revenues and economic activity in core areas. Some survived and did well in the beginning because of the large numbers of office workers situated in downtown cores, but as offices started moving out and away or downsizing, the numbers of office workers declined. Some of these malls have reconfigured in an attempt to survive, but they're not shopping venues anymore. Many of them, however, are being torn down.
I didn't expect this video to inform me that "mall smell" is in fact a real thing. Im glad Im not weird for thinking that there is in fact a mall smell
i can tell the psychology of malls in the modern age has changed so much bc that 5 second clip of the eaton centre nearly gave me a panic attack where as i used to love going downtown and spending like 7 hours there as a kid. they used to have benches and places to hang out but the last time i went i couldnt find a bench for the life of me. friends used to hang out in the aisles of the indigo reading books and having snacks but now they have staff patrolling to make sure you cant sit on the floor. malls are now dreaded places because their only goal is to have you in stores spending money without rest. when i was younger we only bought things at the mall maybe 40% of the time we visited, it was more of a place to hang out. now all those courtyard spaces are empty savannas of vast flooring rather than friendly spaces to hang out and catch up with friends before spending some time smelling yummy soap in bodyshop.
The problem, I see is people in the USA are tired to spending time traveling far to go to mall, where they can get it via online shopping, and for cheaper prices. Personally there is no" third space" in the suburbs of America. Most people spend money eating out once a week.
The mall itself is part of the price thing: in the 1980s I was in the hobby shop business and we could lower prices by about 8 to 12 percent across the board when a mall lease/rent was not a part of the store's financial equation.
I went to the Mall of America circa 2006. I entered on the highest level and the only thing open up there was a Hooters. I've heard that it's only gotten worse since. If the point of a mall is to make money then you need to make sure that you have a customer base to make money off of. The number one thing killing malls isn't e-commerce, its the destruction of the middle class that used to shop there. This isn't going to be fixed with fancier architecture or amenities.
Another example of shopping/market place that designed with nature/greenery in mind is The Jewel at Changi Airport Singapore. This airport mall serves as a connection between all 4 terminals and also serves as a good resting area for those transiting flights via Singapore. Now thats a green/natural mall!
I first saw those fake trees when I lived in Macau and visited one of their casinoes. Brazil shopping mall culture is still alive and kicking, but fake trees would certainly be a very hard sell around here. Most shopping malls that do have plants, usually have pretty modest amounts of plants that can be feasibly cared for.
The mall is in my area is so plain, I kind of like the surrealist nature aspects of the other malls, it's like a weird aesthetic that is uncannily beautiful.
I think it all depends. Malls in middle America seem to be struggling more than the ones that are in the northeast where they have a lot more concentrated wealth. When I go into places like Roosevelt Field on Long Island or Garden St Plaza or Short Hills Mall in New Jersey all I see are huge crowds on a daily basis.
*In Cali, only the really big, bougie malls/outlets are still thriving - like the one in Brea, SD, and South Coast Plaza... but ya, at lot of the smaller ones are pretty dead. I went to the Puente Hills one and there were so many stores that closed. There were barely any people, even on a Sat. I think the only thing keeping it afloat is its movie theater - but theaters are also facing trouble*
In the small city I live I we have one remaining, struggling, mall. It seems that all malls are well on their way to becoming liminal spaces. Great video Stewart, you are really good at this, you ought to start your own UA-cam channel.😊
Several malls in my area are dying but the largest one in the state is still doing well. Luckily an entire wing of this mall changed to stores that the local population wants instead of just the same chain stores you can find anywhere.
NJ resident here. A week or 2 ago it was on the news about a traffic jam at American Dream because no one knows how to get out of there. The signs are confusing. LIterally every single thing about that place is a disaster. I even made plans for one of the stores that was going in there. The entire process of that mall getting built was a complete disaster.
Most of the Malls in the Philippines in particular had become innovative because it became "Township" as we call it here, its not only a Mall but besides of it are tall Residential Condominiums or sometimes Office Towers, so there's always a captured market.
I think that, if a mall is placed close enough to an urban city, the ends of the walkways between all the stores should be connected to popular pedestrian streets to integrate the mall into the urban streetscape, so that you can walk from your house onto a street with a coffee shop, then follow that street for less than a mile (with apartment buildings, offices, and shops along that street), and arrive at the mall, making the mall behave like just another part of the city, but with less housing, less cars, and more visiting people.
Malls may be dying but not everywhere. There are 2 traditional malls within 15 minutes of my house (Indiana). Both are always full of shoppers and busy, even mid-week afternoons. If a store closes, the spot is only empty for a few weeks and another store opens in that area. The one exception is the large empty space where Sears used to be at one of the malls. There's nothing special like theme parks or mini-golf or whatever... just stores, movie theater, and food court.
Strange...despite the death of malls, there seems to be a growing want to keep the classic mall aesthetic alive. Mostly due to the fact that malls, to many, were more than just places to buy stuff but also served as a sort of community center where people could interact and have fun together. Heck, people are kind of hoping malls would come back due to the social graces that were lost due to the pandemic...almost as if we need something to help people relearn how to interact with one another. In fact, note the rise in the popularity of Vaporwave/Mallsoft music as a partial hint to how people miss the old mall aesthetic.
Here in CZ we often have hypermarkets as a part of the mall (Walmart style - I don't recall that in the US), so the main reason for many people to go there is to do bigger grocery shopping. And while they're already there, it's a good opportunity to do other stuff that shops or services provide. Many teenagers loiter in the mall, which for me is kinda sad, but it adds some foot traffic.
I recently looked on google maps how my local mall in the Netherlands has changed over the years, it used to have a small pathetic entrance with some bike racks and a huge parking lots, and that was your only way in. Nowadays there's a big plaza with a fountain, shops on the outside, apartments, and it's a lot more accessible for people walking. They ironically changed it to become more like the city centers that inspired the mall to keep it relevant.
As an American I like malls in Europe (well the one I was in in Portugal and Lisbon) They are compact, fit in with the city and grow up not out. When I was staying in said cities I needed something, in and they were nearby. In and out in 25 minutes.
In my country (Australia) in my city Sydney, shopping malls so far haven't been abandon thankfully. Though it is still car dependent unfortunately. Though they do have options for public transport nearby somewhat
We have reletively few yanky style malls in US. The reason US mall's are in dire straits is due to their size anti-competitive practices. US malls are "destinations" they are usually purpose built locations isolated from the existing commercial and retail infrastructure. The idea being malls compete with other malls rather then servicing the local area. In Aus it's the opposite, most of our shopping centres have been built up over time, they are all built up out of downtown and "main street" areas increasing in size as the local population increased. In fact one of the starkest difference between Aus and US malls is that US malls rarely have supermarkets (what the yanks call grocery stores) Where as in Aus they are the tentpole of Shopping Centres it's so important that owners will bend over backwards to attract the like of coles, woolies and aldi to their centres. I'm also not sure what you think "car dependency" is shopping centres in Aus certainly aren't. The overwhelming majority of shopping centres in Aus use shopping centres as major bus stops on routes (especially in Sydney) and there is usually more housing density around shopping centres due to their location.
Most of the malls where I live at always have life, and I live in the US. There always people around doing stuff, and the weekends are crowded! It’s weird finding out that other malls in the US aren’t being visited as often, because they’re just as fun to me as they were when I was a kid. If your ever have a free day that you just wanna chill out at a mall, do it.
In contrary, malls are doing well in Asia - particularly the Philippines. It's because developers know how infrastructure was neglected in those countries so they strategically place their retail hubs to major cities to provide mass interchanges. People also appreciate how malls seem to look so classy and appropriate that's why it's well-received in Asia.
As a Twin Cities resident, MoA, sometimes called Bigdale, is a place I used to visit regularly when I drove buses that terminated at its recently renovated multimodal transit station. Minnesota will probably remain the last bastion of indoor malls thanks to our frigid winters. The first modern mall, Southdale which dates to the 50s, is only a few miles away from MoA and still thriving. Rosedale, on the north side of St Paul is doing well too, having recently added an aquarium and small petting zoo, plus a von Maur to replace Herberger's. It's trying to be a pocket sized MoA. Brookdale failed years ago. Ridgedale is holding its own, but Maplewood is definitely struggling with low occupancy and loads of crappy, independent "boutiques." Can you guess why MoA is nicknamed Bigdale?
In the Casablanca , Morocco metropolitan area the malls there are booming. They not only have the stores but also a lot of entertainment for families and something for everyone. Just about every mall has a grocery stores , dentists and even condos, apartments and hotels. Wish they did this in the United States
I'm married to a moroccan and I want to move there so badly. He's from North east. morocco. They barely even aircondition our mall here in Texas. It's about 81* inside.
@@mohammedjeffali1076 Oh Wow. Eastern Morocco is nice but it can be very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. Life in Eastern Morocco is very slow go. No big cities or metro areas and it is very cheap. You can get a nice 3 bedroom house with a yard for less than 50,000 Dollars. In Casablanca 50,000 will not even get you a tiny studio. Good luck
Malls are already basically obsolete. Online shopping and curbside delivery of goods has made it unnecessary to get dressed, fight traffic, park, walk the mall, try on clothes, check out your purchases, and then reverse the entire process. I've been buck-naked shopping since the first days of being able to shop online. I never go to the mall or even strip malls unless I am desperately bored, which basically never happens. When I stumbled into the local mall 4th of July, 2022, I was shocked that most of the typical retailers had moved out. The mall looked like a flea market, save for Macy's, Dillards, and Penneys.
Malls are dying where the middle class is DEAD, they are thriving and even being built where the middle class is moving. You'll see high end malls built and thriving in new Florida communities, while they're dying in older ones where the "working poor" are who don't have money to shop or sustain them. That or they have "SEARS" and other once great, but now crap brands. Oh also lets also remember,AIRPORT MALLS are THRIVING!
I'm a bit horrified to learn they use scent chemicals in mall air - a good friend of mine is terribly allergic to artificial scents, especially the base "fragrance" chemical. My area lost an iconic theme park to a giant shopping mall; ironic to see that now theme parks are getting built INSIDE malls. We have a dead mall about 20 miles away and the forests 1 mile away from it were clear cut so that a NEW outlet mall could be built. It's STUPID.
Always enjoy your work, Mr. Hicks. I've often wondered why the mall formula never experimented with housing of any kind to create complete car free communities. We've traditionally done as much with other parts of our culture. Education, for example. College campuses often come with adjacent housing and retail. In fact, if they don't, they get chastised as "commuter campuses". As for the death of malls, blaming the malls is a shallow analysis. You wouldn't blame the American middle class for its own death, would you?
Malls wouldn’t try to create car-free communities, that would mean people no longer paying lots of money for cars, and paying lots of money to try to maintain them! Malls and cars are designed to work _together_ to drain people’s bank accounts.
@@b1ff Yes. I'm not suggesting they would be like current American malls which are dying nation wide. That's my point, typical malls don''t incorporate housing or transportation. But running a light rail line through a mall, for example, wouldn't be stretching civic design standards.
Victor Gruen's initial vision and plan for the mall was to incorporate housing, recreational facilities, as well as schools. Sadly, these elements were removed from the final plan for the first mall.
malls are still a big thing here in Canada however i can safely say that this kind of mall would not work here in Canada because of 2 reasons: Its too big and lacks transit system to get people there. Every mall here in Canada are built near major highways and have at least a major bus transit built in the mall so even if people dont want to go shop at the mall, they still need to go through it to get where they want to go. Some malls take it a step further by having a train stain or even airport and seaport. If its too big with too many stores, the upkeep will cost too much and most stores will never be visited because too many options and then comes the even harder task of finding enough businesses to open shop in your mall. A decent size would a mall with anywhere from 2 to 3 levels with the food court at the center and a quick way from there to the transit station so people that are travelling can stop for lunch and while they eat they should be able to see most of the stores from the food court so they can see something nice to buy before leaving or are reminded they need new pants or whatever from looking. If the mall is too big, they wont have time to look at all the stores while eating andd will take too long to visit everything. So thats why this mall was doomed to fail from the start. Instead of building on big mall, i would've built 10 medium ones with anywhere from 50 to 300 small stores/restaurants and 2 to 5 large ones. Thats it. Any bigger and its like using money instead of wood for your fire. It will look great at first with a much bigger flame at first, but it will also die out way faster and you'll be freezing for the rest of the night while your smart neighbour enjoys his wood fire. - In the US theres a saying: Go Big Or Go Home But the way i see it, well its sounds more like this: Go Stupid Or Stay Safe
American consumerism frightens me to the point that I am flabbergasted knowing that there is sound engineering and specific architecture to manipulate shopping behavior. That sounds creepy!
Malls can certainly have a surreal feeling to them,but even though their nature is purely commercial,and they’re often sparsely populated,they can sometimes be rather aesthetically pleasing
I don't know. As someone in Toronto Canada I think all the major malls are fairing pretty well these days (Eaton, Yorkdale, Vaughan Mills, Square One, to name a few)...
“Without too much of a health hazard” 🤮 Also, one of the best parts of skiing in the mountains (or literally anywhere outside) is the view of mountains, trees, the forest and sky- it’s breathtaking. The only thing making you gasp here is the snowcat fumes.
Nature/trees in malls: So true. In Plano Texas, the Collin Creek Mall was built 1981 with 4 anchor stores (Sanger-Harris, Sears, Dillard's, JCP). I had experiences with the mall in the late 80s. As a kid, I loved the waterways they had doing the main mall corridors. There were small, with lots of plants - real ones. Lots of coins in the fountains. Trees everywhere. So there were small bridges to cross or places to sit and relax in the middle. So it wasn't easy to zig-zag from one side to the other. Visually, I loved it. Around 2000, the mall got rid of most of that. A few plant/fountain areas remained near some escalators but were effectively dead. But now the floor was vast and open between all the stores on the 1st level (a 2-level mall). As typical, they put retail kiosks to fill in the now bare empty space. You know, those wall-less shops with 1-2 workers with 60~200ft of "space". The mall looked... meh, generic. No sense of wonder. And like most malls in America - it started dying around 2008. turning into ghost towns. Its doors were shut in 2019. They had a party, at least, with early 1980's theme. Thousands of people showed up. But here's the kicker, news showed pictures of when the Mall first opened up. And WOW. IT had about double the plant/fountain space that I never saw. It had a huge fountain in the middle of the mall. The place was not usable for wheelchair access in many places. The waterways down the four corridors to the anchor stores were MUCH bigger than what I saw as teen. It looked beautiful. First thing they got rid of: the fountain in the middle. That was understandable. It made it very crumble-some to go to any of the 4 corridors. A lot of traps, that would make people go back and even fall into the water. You could be in a store and walk off the floor into 1~2 feet of water. They removed too much. It made it easier to clean the area since it became a giant floor. And no places for people to fall into plants, dirt or water... it's boring. Look up the photos. "collin creek mall 1981" They are building the area with Apartment buildings, big-box stores and retained the core of the mall to be a new mall again.
I grew up in Illinois in a rural area and strip malls were all I knew. I have lived the past eight years in Hoboken/Jersey City, and two before that in Manhattan. I've waited in hours long lines at the Soho Zara just to try on a blouse. I've got my hair lit on fire by a kid at the Newport Mall. Nothing has made me feel more anxious and idk how else to explain it, but sad, than the American Dream Mall. Been there several times but each time I feel miserable while there. I'll stick to Newport and our JC Penny's and Cheesecake Factory lol.
Most malls aren't giant tourist attractions like the ski slope one you mentioned but they all suffer the same problem. Low wages and inflation are reducing the amount of disposable income families have. Malls are filled with general merch stores that aren't needs. Many turn into empty spots with a Belk being the busiest store. Tourists and locals aren't excited about going to them. Local business owners also can't afford to pay mall rent so smaller specialized stores aren't there either. American malls should convert to a more Asian-style where grocery stores, living space, and niche shops are right next to the big chains. If the mall is right next door to where you live, why not go?
A lot of malls in America are exactly like that. Memorial City Mall and the Galleria Mall in Houston are like that. a lot of malls are still thriving today here depending on the location
Lol try the Philippines. Malls here thrive because of convenience. We have a grocery store and the theater all within the same building. It sounds odd to many people but it works and keeps malls busy hence making it relevant.
Weird that the malls around me have cut down on fountains and there's not that much greenery anymore... :/ One mall used to have a dramatic water spout that would go up to like 15 feet high in the air and then calm down, it was neat. I've been to the mall in cold snap in winter to get some walking inside, and I wish it was actually more than shopping.
part of the problem is the way malls are designed in the USA, they are maximied for money spending down to the location of shops. I think if they were able to 1)mixing it up 2) adding more entertainment features and 3)trying to beautify malls. make them locations or like an indoor riveralk, something thats unique.and WALKABLE! transit oriented with no large parking lots
Hearing about all the psychological tricks retailers use in service of raw consumerism gives me the willies. It just sounds to me like something right out of They Live. The worst part is that I know that despite my knowledge of such tactics, I'm still just as vulnerable to them because they operate below consciousness.
I hate the fact malls are dying. Buying clothes on the internet is less than ideal. Where I'm from, all the businesses moved out of the mall and across the highway, literally, into a newly constructed mega strip center. And, the strip center has more consumers than the mall, which is outside!! Why would you want to walk from store to store in the cold? Why didn't you patronize those businesses when they were across the street? It's bizarre.
I haven't been in a nice mall in ages. This video kind of made me want to visit one. I am genuinely curious if there is a way to make the mall design sustainable and beneficial. It sounds like a nice mental exercise.
I miss the indoor malls of the 70s and 80s. My parents would take my brother and I shopping with them about once a week. These days they have been replaced with townhomes and smaller shopping centers and have none of the charm they used to.
I'm a Northern New Jersey girl. Going to the mall every single weekend is in my blood, and I will never stop. 🤣 I live just down the road from American Dream and go once a week. It's a great place that provides lots of jobs, and most of the trees and plants I have seen are all real. Most malls here aren't really dead, and you still struggle to find parking on a Saturday, but the smaller ones without much to offer are kind of on the downward spiral to closure. Anyway! Interesting to watch.
I think urban malls are still doing quite well in Europe and Asia, probably because their practical use is heightened by sitting directly upon major transit interchanges.
it’s not just Eurasians. Canadians build malls on stations. Underground, too, which makes it more interesting.
Currently in Europe, malls are packed because they are integrated into the places where people live. Malls in the USA and Canada (where I am from) are off major highways and stroads and are not very accessible.
Bingo😅. They need to build mass transit it’s catching up with them.
because in the US, car is dominating and dictating the behavior of the people,
not to mention, people live in suburb, there also an unnecessary zoning law.
while in other country especially in asian, the mall will be surrounded by apartement, school, office, hospital, walmart, everything that you need.
everything is within walking distance
it became a mini city, and the mall is sustained by the residents in that mini city
while in US, driving to a Mall is like traveling to Europe, no wonder people chose to go to the nearby walmart or costco instead of Mall
Same, in Qatar the metro connects directly to several of the biggest malls.
As someone from Asia who has travelled the US, mall culture is very different. Giant malls in asia have huge daily traffic because it is right smack in the center of urban areas. They are conveniently in stops between train stations and bus terminals which ensure daily traffic as people commute. It is nearby condominiums, offices and universities too. Nobody needs a car to get to a mall. It's a short ride away. In the US, the suburban setup requires people to have a car and drive to a mall or anywhere. I was stunned people drive from Wal-mart to a mall just across the street. Nobody walked. Maybe because it's on a highway? In asia, you don't even have to buy anything and you'd find yourself inside a mall on your way to everywhere. And once you're inside one, pretty much anyone in the family can spend the whole day doing all sorts of activities and meet again for dinner without stepping out. When the day is done, a bus or train is just in one of the exits if you don't have a car.
Also, I am amazed how the US have such huge parking lots outside the mall -which means driving to the next building. Asia is quite crammed and rarely will one see outside parking as most are underground or are built attached to the building.
I love both, the malls in Asia just seem a lot more inviting and with so much going on for everyone, not just shopping. And for all of the above, even with online platforms, malls aren't going anytime soon this side of the world.
There are both kinds. In Japan, *some* malls are integrated into transport (Tokyo Station is basically a gigantic mall with some train platforms). But they also have the large out-of-town malls that can only be reached by car, most of them operated by Aeon.
based
We did have those. There were tons of malls right in the middle of big cities. And they did great in the 80s and 90s. The problem no one ever seems to talk about with dying malls is the ABSURD over-saturation of retail shopping in the US and Canada. Endless strip malls, big box stores, indoor malls, outdoor malls, gift shops, grocery stores, department stores, electronic stores, and on and on and on. There is a limit to how much a consumer is going to consume, but greedy developers don't seem to understand this so they keep building stores nobody wants and then complain about them being empty.
Having to walk a football field or two just to get to the front door from the parking lot definitely contributes to people not walking to the mall.
the car centric design of US cities are imo odd to say the least
As someone living in Asia, where malls continue to thrive, hearing about the decline of malls in the USA and Canada always intrigues me. Have you ever thought of doing a comparison of how malls here and over there are built and how some of these contribute to their continued relevance here versus their decline over there? The one factor I can think of is that our malls are better integrated into public transport, though there has to be more to it than that.
In the uk shopping centers act more like a street of shops with a glass roof which is good as we have very rainy weather more than 6months of the year
It's not just public transport. All the shops and areas you want to go to are either walkable or integrated with transit such that the idea of going shopping somewhere is not a huge adventure that requires a drive. And this factor makes it so middle and high school students who can't drive can actually meet up in malls after school or on the weekend easily.
As someone.
This is something I usually think about as well. I'm from Brazil, and even though mall culture was never as strong here as in the US and in recent years new styles of retail spaces have been popping up across the country, malls in our cities are still doing fine. Around here I believe criminality rates and ethnicity play a big role in their success. Brazilian shopping streets are usually quite dirty and prone to criminality, and usually white richer people don't want to circulate around black or mixed-race people that have a lower income and are forced to buy in budget stores in cities' downtown areas.
Here in LaLa Land, California shopping malls are thriving - yet barely integrated to public transportation, so you must be correct - there's is more to it.
I'm guessing the fake trees are probably a response to the lesson learned by West Edmonton Mall, which single-handedly introduced cockroaches to the city in their imported palm trees.
I just amazed my canadian husband with this piece of trivia, so thank you
Huh never knew that . I do miss the palm trees and greenery the mall used to have.
As someone who lives in Edmonton I was unaware that this was the reason for the removal of the palm trees. Nowadays the mall just has a dull look to it, unlike the charm it gave off back when I was a kid.
Jesus fking christ
Damn that sounds like a nightmare.
It is crazy seeing crowded malls in 2022, but they're all in Asia. Malls here in the US are seen as depressing relics of the past now.
Depends on where you are. The mall in my town in Georgia, US is doing well. It's crowded on most days especially the weekend.
@@TheNobleFive EXACTLY. I live in Georgia too and malls are doing well for themselves in my area.
Lot in US certainly can do well as a lot of people in comments have said the problem is that we became over-saturated with malls and malls became bigger and bigger. And oftentimes there's a big commute to them. Malls large work better and urban centers so as long as isn't over saturated. Small malls like small outlets and small indoor malls can actually work well in more rural areas.
@@TheNobleFive there are a lot of malls in Georgia that aren't doing well that are dying out and yet you're right there are some malls that are doing well. When new malls are built they often outdo their competition. The stranger things Mall is a dying Mall. I know that was proposed to change it into a lifestyle community center. Basically a mall plus apartments.
There are plenty in Europe and, in some places, Canada as well. The problem of the U.S. is that they are propped up on third world infrastructure, so of course people prefer online shopping there now that it's available.
I once took a potted 18" tall Areca palm into reception where I work (hotel in the UK). 8 years later it was 12 foot tall, with the same diameter, and took up about 20% of the room. I think that plant earned us more positive reviews than any of our team's efforts.
I should add the plant (it's name is Bert) is still going strong - I had to find it a new home due to the C*vid lockdown, and a local botanical garden came and rescued it.
I love this story. I love it more because my office outlawed real plants which is absolutely insane. Real plants are excellent in an office.
Just got an Areca palm last year, it's doing surprisingly well, among many indoor plants that I've managed to kill off. Would recommend.
@@g0d5m15t4k3 You were sadly working for Idiots
@@agoatmannameddesire8856 I hope it does as well as Bert did!
How do people not find this dystopian
To mix metaphors, I think there’s the seed of a great thing here, but most of it is just reanimating a corpse that it killed in the first place.
Very dystopian
Far less dystopian than a single corporation controlling 56.7% of all online retail purchases in 2021, blanketing the landscape with its warehouses, that pushes workers to their literal breaking points, with twice the number of injuries as their competitors. A corporation that made governments danced for their offices like trained monkeys, throwing corporate welfare at them, as their boss burns money on spaceflight.
Because it's a mall? Like saying the Roman baths were dystopian because how dare they put "fake ponds" under a roof.
The past week definitely reminds people in the north of the U.S., and in Canada why you have places like this still exist.
Malls are dystopian in the same way the Garden of Eden was dystopian, and lots of people want to go back there too.
I've been to malls in Asia with real plants inside. It depends on the luxury level of said mall. Cheap neighborhood malls usually uses fake plants, high end condo malls and destination malls usually have real plants.
Why would cheap malls use artificial plants when plants aren't expensive to upkeep? if it's about the cost of maintenance (which is still reasonably cheap) there are plenty of plants that require very little care.
@@raeraesocraycray7702 Cheap fake plants with a single installation are still cheaper cheap real plants and cheap wage labor to take care of them.
@@ArchOfWinter That is sad. I live in Australia and most places like malls or even hospitals have real plants. it makes such a difference and improves the air quality. you really notice the difference when you walk into a place with no plants.
In Germany and France malls are doing very well despite the fakeness. However malls are always in walking distance of neighbourhoods, their almost always surrounded by shopping streets and food stores, they tend to have a park nearby and they’re easily accessible by public transport.
European cities are people centered. Always well planned.
what are u talking about? malls are doing absolutly bad in germany. Famous malls like karstadt and galeria kaufhof need constant help from the state, quote from wikipedia:
"In January 2022, it received €250 million in federal aid, after having received a €460 million loan from the economic stabilization fund in 2021.In November, the chain announced it had filed for the German equivalent of insolvency for a second time and planned to close a third of its 131 locations"
It's not just due to covid, they struggled for years cause nobody shops in them anymore. Ordering from amazon is super easy in germany. please stop spreading lies.
@@mb2776 I’m from Germany. Karstadt and Galeria Kaufhof are not Einkaufszentren (= malls) but Warenhäuser or also called Kaufhäuser (= big department store). Since Galeria Kaufhof orders and manages everything by itself there is a greater risk of mismanagement and high costs. These risks came to fruition [edit: for some of the Kaufhäuser and those in question] failed. Warenhäuser like that are dying in Germany but not Einkaufszentren. With an Einkaufszentrum these risks are minimised since it’s run by individual Business and only the administration is done centrally. They are still very much successful.
So no I’m not lying but you do. So fact check before and also make sure you check the words in question before talking.
@@yumnax malls probably exist to write off taxes by showing losses and paying rentals.
@@SharkFishSF could be. Believe me however they are almost always full and vibrant. If you come to Europe you’ll see. Also they are so close to residential areas I can literally walk to three by foot. I guess in the US the problem is that the mall itself is the destination and there’s nothing around it. In Europe you can afterwards decide to go to the park, go to the shopping streets, or too more stores, cafes or diners nearby. Only few malls in Germany are in areas remote from people.
I love the term Disneyfication. Whenever I see an overly complex environment that is fake, I reflexively start wondering how much extra I'm paying on anything I spend here just for the privilege of being in this cartoon environment
Exactly. It's mind boggling to me how many people still see that as a positive experience
On a purely emotional level, not thinking about it intellectually, I have a sense of despair that wells up in malls... especially before Christmas... there must be no more depressing place in the world than a mall before Christmas, with the pop Christmas music playing...
side from the fact that they are physically inconvenient, I just need to get a thing, and to get that thing you have to go to the mall, park, walk to the mall, walk in the mall, and everything again in the reverse direction... instead of dashing into a shop for 5 minutes it takes an hour or two... Apparently there are people who like to spend time there, they go there to spend time... but not me....
@@PRH123
In Europe most of these people go to IKEA: they eat Swedish meatballs and wander through the store every weekend
@@sd-ch2cq I've done that too :) even if you dont want or need anything, you feel obligated that you must buy something when leaving... I think that's half of their base business model :)
@@tomlxyzlike mills malls. (pre-simonization)
Maybe malls in US are dying but in Asia its thriving, thats because, malls in Asia are more than just a department store, its a complex which integrates community function. It has a church, clinics, drugstores, family entertainment and even government office where you can get your licences and the like, and recently its being integrated with condos too and it makes life very convenient.
Ps, they dont use fake plants here, they have actual gardens and more recently malls have dog parks too.
LOL. ME FROM INDONESIA SOUTH EAST ASIA MANY MALL IN MY PLACE GO BANKRUPT BECAUSE ONLINE SHOP
ONLINE SHOP GOODS IS MORE CHEAP THAN MALL
MALL IS GOOD FOR PICNIC NOT BUY SOMETHING
@@onlyyoucanstopevil9024 first off, the caps lock is designed to be toggled, you can turn it off.
Second, which part of indonesia is that? Afaik malls are doing fine here
Here in the Philippines, malls are often filled with people, which can cause traffic jams, but they are easily accessible by public transport, and if you live nearby you probably don’t even need to drive a car there. You basically have everything there (there’s even a large church next to one of its parking lots)
Some malls in asia even have schools and offices attached to them
@@iamsaw8salso one thing Filipino malls that others dont have. Cinemas
I studied Archaeology and a lot of Archaeology is the history of Architecture. The whole point of most large scale building was to be Surreal. Faux nature was everywhere. The Papyrus columns of Karnak. The ponds, pools and gardens of Mesopotamia. There are references to scents being used to influence people back into ancient India. The complex of Stonehenge was designed to move people between the common and spirit worlds. Architecture was to inspire, terrify, impress.
As other commenters have noted malls are doing fine in other parts of the world, so the nature of what a mall is cannot be the whole explanation for why the seem to be fading in the US. You seem very enamoured of Urban areas. But the shopping is failing there at the same rates as malls. Large stretches of shopping districts in NYC are half empty. I tend to attribute it to the general shift to internet shopping. There are Amazon Lockers all over. Amazon Go Stores are a thing.
An issue I don't think you discuss enough is the Finance end of building. You can call buildings a physical embodiment of a business idea. Many malls failed because of poor financial management, and outright Shenanigans with the books. Like all retail, these are not high margin businesses and cannot tolerate huge debt loads.
NYC is weird because of the extremely high rents, in general good urbanism is good for businesses.
Malls work outside the us cs they usually dont work like us malls that are in the middle of nowhere in the suburbs where youre forced to drive to into shitty parki
@@szurketaltos2693 No, it's not. All the downtown department stores died in most cities for a good reason.
No-one ever seems to equate the fact that US consumers have the largest retail footprint per capita of any major market, and why some urban cores and shopping malls are dying. The USA has 24 retail square feet per person, Canada 17, Australia 11, UK 5, Taiwan 2, Indonesia 1. We have so much retail failing in the USA because there is a massive glut of it even compared to similarly wealthy countries. Add in any amount of Online Sales, and a lot of the excess retail expenditure needs to disappear as the bubble pops. Buying more square feet of retail space only makes sense when it provides value to the customer, and whether its inconvenient locations or poor experience a lot of old retail has to die and be reformed into better retail for the American public. P.S. I don't want anyone to loose their jobs, but find some of the moaning about different successful or dying businesses in the USA to sometimes be too narrow in the discussion of why there is disruption in the retail market. These poorly constructed discussions of retail death often lead to disasters like the "American Dream" mall which actually had several owners, developers, shakey fraud and corruption scandals, and random redesigns during its 15year construction, and tripple 5 weirdly leveraged and mismanaged their other mega malls to some extent to take control of the "American Dream" right before Covid19.😅 The American glut in retail space has a lot to due with weird subsidies and government corruption, and the blight of dead malls is the tragic result.
@@toomanymarys7355 department stores are only one kind of store, that said there are plenty of them in cities
You should do a video on the surreal urbanism/architecture of cruise ships.
I was thinking of cruise ship atriums with some of the pictures of malls. They kind of are floating malls with hotels when you think about it.
Great idea!!
Yes PLEASE. Cruise ships are the most polluting form of travel. For all of Sweden's green reputation, some Swedes think it is their birthright to take their cars on the Baltic Cruise ships. Made my MIL angry because I refused to go with them and their car on a cruise to Finland.
@@shinnam that is a flat out lie. Cruise ships are nowhere near the most "polluting form of travel". They put more money into diminishing their environmental impact than practically any other major consumer corporation on the planet. And what you are talking about in Sweden is NOT a cruise ship it is a car ferry. Even then they use some of the most efficient cleanest burning engines in the industrialized world. You are speaking from a place of complete ignorance when you say this kind of thing.
@@ashleighelizabeth5916 Companies pay people to do PR for them on UA-cam, wikipedia and other social media. We know what your job is.
It's a shame the European style shopping arcades never became a thing in north america. It would have made so much sense with the more extreme weather.
We call them outlet malls and what killed them is that it's all shit architecture. Arcades at least have the benefits of reusing existing buildings but here in the states they are all new built construction and most of the time new built is often designed by either modern arts majors or people who are just getting their start in architecture
They were successful in Cleveland during the 40's & 50's.
There’s an arcade in the food court of the mall where I live, the space invaders game in it always has a voice coming out of it that you can hear from quite a while away
@@tiggytheimpaler5483 it was the urban planning moreso, the cheap postmodernism isint the problem, its the giant parking lot
I’m an architect, I appreciate the thought and production you put into your videos. Your work rekindles the excitement I have for this profession.
I’m not an architect, But I channel Art Vandelay when the cute women are around. LOL
@@salty6pence672 me myself am an exporter/importer.
in Mexico shopping malls are doing relatively ok due to 2 factors: Online shopping is still pretty insecure, the logistics part of it is still amess and everything is heavily taxed so it really does not saves you money, is only used to buy things you simply cannot get in physical stores, second, malls aren't in suburbs but in centric urban zones with plenty of people passing by daily, lastly, the fall of malls in America is more a sign of shrinking middle class than a sign of online shopping overtaking it.
In addition, there are 2 new shopping malls located in Mexico City, one near Tepeyac and a huge one Mitikah.
You always use Chicago where literally every other channel would use Manhattan as an example. Every video I love you for this and will never stop praising you for it.
And it's annoying
@@tubeguy4066o is Manhattan
Jk I never went there
Chi town
When indoor malls removed all of the convenient benches for shoppers to sit down and relax for a few minutes, I never went back.
Me and my gf use to stay in the mall for hours with those benches when I didn't see a bench to sit down and had to walk to the middle of the mall to get a seat...I second guessed and said we'll I guess I'll just go home didn't feel like walking that far
Many were removed because of covid (so you wouldn't sit around and would go away as soon as you're done) but also because of teenager hanging out on them. In their minds, they don't shop, they just walk and sit around. So they got rid of them, disregarding elderly or sick who might need to sit down to relieve their legs. Many malls here removed benched so they could put small stall/boots there. More stuff for customers to buy
Most malls in the uS have not gotten the clue that that the population is aging.
I was a Mall Rat back in the 80's. They were considered a cool place to hang out back then because no other environment like an indoor mall existed. Popular media made them even more popular. But over the years the selection of stores has dwindled to the point that there is nothing for a man to need or want at the mall. Anchor stores like Sears and Mervyns died, the cutlery and pipe tobacco shops went away and now all that's left are jewelry stores, women's clothing, footwear and cellphone kiosks. Our local mall put in an arcade and bowling alley but it just won't work. The kids that attend places like arcades are generally not wanted in the other stores.
Yep. The kids were future customers... chase away the kids!! And bored kids at the mall = not fun for the adults either.
A really nice mall in Dallas was for artist and creative types. It was a conversion of several buildings - it did NOT have a single level floor, especially upstairs. So you were constantly going up or down a few steps. But it was still great. An artist could afford a small space and a low price. There was food, things to buy and do. Watch people create things, build things. The owners sold the building/land for something else, that later fell through The Mall did not die from lack of customers. It was murdered by greed.
It remained a fenced-in area for about 15 years. becoming a parking lot and eventually generic box-shaped apartment buildings.
Then Valley View died a horribly slow death. It became the place for artists years later. A dozen or so real stores remained. The rest were small mom-pop stores, then artists - dozen of small galleries, artwork shops, etc. Pay month to month. It too, was mostly shut down in 2018, and demolition started in 2019. 4 years later in 2023 - they are STILL doing demolition to the very last bit of the mall. The area looks like garbage, a waste land in the middle of Dallas.
We were in malls because there was no where else to go because our parents.moved us all out of the cities. In my case to get away from the "coloreds."
@@TexasCat99 That just sounds incredibly upsetting..
Regarding the Cinnabon smell, that too is a big trick. They have locations in malls and airports on purpose so that the smells can linger. Cinnamon rolls are baked every 30 minutes at minimum, and to keep the scent in the air, some stores even warm up sheets of just cinnamon and brown sugar! Ovens are also placed near the front of the store so that the smell "escapes" when employees open the oven doors. Franchisees of the bakery are told to buy the "weakest hood possible" that is legal for their ovens.
With the rise of online shopping and of course the pandemic, malls have struggled and shuttered. Now they're reinventing themselves to be more appealing to everyone, whether it be to include indoor water parks and theme parks like the American Dream Meadowlands or a housing development. But Cheesecake Factory is the peak of American malls. Its decor screams "Let's further treat ourselves and eat here before shopping some more". Sure they're weird with their dictionary-sized menus, but that's what makes them stand out. The first restaurant opened in 1978 in Beverly Hills, and the rest is history. I hope to open just a street of Cheesecake Factories but they're all different designs with statues of me.
When I worked at Mrs Field’s there was an overhead exhaust fan next to the oven that automatically turned on when we opened the oven. So we barely smelled anything, but if you walked past you got a good whiff.
Back in the old days, the Ayala mall in cebu used to have drop-off points with wasted space in its Bohol (street) and Luzon (avenue) fronts, a boring lagoon in its Mindanao-Biliran front, and a massive parking lot on the Rosales side that was connected with the basement parking and the old Rustan's supermarket (which wasn't even connected to the actual department store on the ground floor in front of the elevators). Nowadays, the Bohol front has since been developed into a huge BPO office building that cleverly incorporates the old entrance into its design, the Luzon front (the latest one to be developed) is a tall condo with convenient access to the redesigned mall entrance including spaces for new shops on the 2nd and 3rd floors, the Mindanao-Biliran (earliest one to be developed) front is now an outdoor area with many restaurants, the Rosales side is the new annex with a slender condo tower with direct access to the 4th floor of it as well as the new and improved Rustan's department store AND supermarket. As for the old Rosales parking lot, what remains of it has been repaved and incorporated into the mall's existing basement parking with a modern grand entrance drop-off point and manicured garden of square-shaped shrubs.
As for SM in nearby reclamation area, the mall (which catered to the lower classes) looked like your typical generic suburban 1980s American shopping mall (there was a huge parking lot in front of its north front) until they renovated the mall to cater to the middle-upper class, built the Northwing, cinemas (which included Cebu's only IMAX theatre), & its new parking structure. What remains of the parking lot was only there until now because of several delays to the undertaking of the expansion plan (they had to build a new steel parking structure next to Radisson in order to compensate for the predicted loss of parking space that the future construction would bring). The expansion would make the existing parking structure bigger and add more shops to the mall.
The scent thing explains why malls give me migraines. I'm very sensitive to scents. I have to wear allergy masks in malls, especially around stores that sell scented candles, shampoos, perfumes, etc. I like malls for the most part, but there are only a few near me and the main reason they get so much business is because it's the only places where those stores can be found. Some places are in strip malls or shopping districts, but traditional malls tend to have outlets, unique food, repair places for various things, and it's often just practical compared to having to drive between shopping districts to get to everything you need. Where at a mall, you can get a new watch battery, try a bubble tea, eat a burger, and buy all your Christmas presents at the same place. As someone with chronic pain and fatigue, I like the idea of not having to go outside in the snow/rain and travel long distances to get everything I need, but I also find it much easier to get migraines due to things like scented products, fluorescent lights, and the large crowds.
I watched a thing about the hystory of a high end brand store that was big in the 00s and the 90s. the use of chemical sents to manipulate you in malls is far far far from new. It made the news years ago. I wish i could remeber the damnn docutmentry it was a good watch
Saaaaame. Scents give me histamine attacks, headache, nausea, etc. Candle stores are actively dangerous, I feel sorry for the employees. Even if they're not as sensitive they're huffing these chemicals in day in, day out
@ Joy L, I feel horrible for you. When I lost my scent temporarily after covid, I realized how much I actually enjoy smelling everything everywhere I go. I’m grateful it came back in full.
@Joylox - Yes, I thought of people like you the moment he mentioned the scent thing! I always thought it was just the overwhelm - too many people, too much noise, too bright/flashing lights - that bothered the folks I know who can’t abide malls. But for some, it’s probably the scents. I just had no idea that it was so damn ubiquitous!
I still remember the day I ordered my first item online. I knew it was a watershed moment. Within a few years, I was doing almost all of my shopping online. And part of the reason is that it’s so much less stressful to shop that way, for just about anything other than possibly clothes (though even that is arguable for us plus sized folks). Although there is a distinct lack of Cinnabon stands inside my home. ;)
I recommend for you to breath through your mouth when you smell strong scents in order to prevent migraine attacks. It helped me prevent my attacks! The nose smells scents too good, but my mouth cannot smell anything
I don’t know why shopping malls moved away from the original design: to be an entire community unto itself, with housing, recreation, shopping, and entertainment all in one spot. I used to work at old orchard mall. That place should have housing units on top of the retail stores!
They never had an "original design", they were always places to just house retail stores. Gruen wanted them have housing/recreation but it was never actually added to any designs. Besides housing in malls would be really weird, since these places usually existed on the outskirts of cookie cutter suburbs, having just some random apartments in a shopping mall would just be really weird, not to mention the amount of noise pollution would probably make them horrible to live in.
we have lots of malls here in malaysia's capital where flats/hotels would be built atop malls! its pretty cool i never thought it would be that uncommon though
The thumbnail is a picture of the Villagio mall in Doha, Qatar. It's a huge mall themed after Venice, Italy. Yes I know that re-recreating Venice in a mall in the middle of the desert is a crazy idea, but that's the Gulf for you. Malls are a cornerstone of society in the Gulf, it's where we tend to hang out with our friends, have business lunches, and do our shopping. During the super hot summer months, malls are literally the only public place where you can hang out and meetup with others, that's how essential malls are in our part of the world.
It kind of looks like the Grand Canal Shops at the Venetian
There’s also one in the Philippines named Venice Grand Canal Mall in McKinley Hills
Same here in SEA. Free AC!
Yea I thought it was the Venetian in Vegas.
Or the one i was in macau looks same
I’m 21 and from the area, for a lot of local kids this place was legend for so long. We heard whispers of indoor skiing and things about the owners of mall America, all by someone’s uncles best friend you know. To see it come to life and be what it is today when for so long it was just “that thing on the side of the turnpike” is insane.
Thank you for sharing this. These sorts of very human experiences are insightful
I work less than two miles from this thing and i've never been there. I have to drive basically right past it to get on route 3 every day and i was terrified it was going to make traffic unbearable. Nope, no difference at all cause nobody ever goes there. :) I'm buying a condo in Little Ferry now so I won't have to commute anymore, less than five miles from this thing but I will never go there. Death to malls!
Remember when it was supposed to be called “Xanadu”?
@@Kevin_it_be yes!! Do you remember the ABCs of NJ X is for Xanadu
Malls are well-patronized in Southern California. My mall has a youth theater group, jewelry repair, massage therapy, an alterations lady, & a cosmetology school, as well as stores and a food court. It's cool in the summer and serves the community well.
The reason why Victor Gruen turned his back on malls was because developers refused to include on-site housing, offices both workplaces and professional office buildings, public services such as police, fire, libraries, etc, and recreational amenities.
These developers really don't care about their employees, isn't it?
Malls in North America don't work because you have to DRIVE to them. The mall is not the problem, it's the suburban hellscape they are built in. If you can order something online, why would you want to drive somewhere?
Malls in Europe and Asia are doing well because they are generally built inside active town centres. Most malls in Asia are built alongside massive condo housing buildings. This guarantees a customer base that only has to go down the elevator or take a short walk to reach the shopping centre.
Malls in America don’t work because of an ridiculously rigid zoning. The entire concept of the suburb needs to die.
The American Dream mall looks straight out of the 80’s tbh. But not all malls/shopping centers are bad. The Easton Town Center in Columbus, OH is quite nice with its mixture of outdoor shopping streets and a smaller more traditional mall location in the middle. The Kirkland shop center/Scottsdale commons in Phoenix/Scottsdale is another great shopping location that is built to resemble outdoor shopping rather than a traditional mall.
in my country, we built our first mall in the 80s with the intent to have events and concerts. so every entrance leads a straight line to the middle where there is a mobile stage. they had to repaint and cover up all the 80s styles and design choices to achieve a more 2010s look but they have still never been able to get EVERY room rented to a business :/ they even made a starbucks kiosk where the meeting place is to get more people to come in. i think it needs an outdoor space, malls that came after them have been able to achieve this by making the meeting places simply roofless
One time I went to a mall in Florida that was part indoor part outdoor. Most of what they sold was knock off items so I don't think they're around anymore, but it was neat to see the blending of a somewhat traditional mall, with a farmers market. Upon looking it up, apparently it was more of a flea market than a mall, but it was definitely mall like. Of course the biggest mall I remember in Florida was the one that had Wannado City in it, a whole miniature city designed for kids to learn what it was like to have certain careers, with things like a flight simulator, fire department, grocery store, bakery, and even a small robotics lab, just to name a few. It was like if you took Disney's Epcot, made it for ages 5-10, and put it in a mall. Parents liked it for babysitting and the educational aspects, while kids loved getting to try new things and learn new skills. I'd go with my cousins that lived near there, and it was fun.
I'm in Canada, and we don't have anything like that near me. But I like how most of our malls have skylights, and it's more or less a way to shop without worrying about snow or rain like you would with the more common strip malls and shopping districts. It's like the same reasons people like Ikea. You can get all sorts of useful things, and food, in the same place without having to drive between stores, restaurants, and other places you might need to go, pretty much everything is right there.
I can actually imagine a mall that I like. Here is how it would have to be. First, it would be tightly integrated into the public transport network of the city. Ideally, one floor would actually be the main transport interchange of the city, where you would transfer between metro lines and catch trams and busses. Second, it would be integrated into the city and have no dead space for parking. Ideally it would even offer shortcut walking paths between high traffic places that aren't in the mall. The people who want to access it by car would park kinda far away and ride in on a free parking shuttle train. Third, it would offer legit public spaces, not just commercial stuff where people are fleeced. At its core would be the central public library, which would host various free events like poetry readings and visiting authors. There should also be something like a skate park. A food court is actually a really good feature in current malls, but it has the potential to be much better if it felt more like a park with many tables and benches. And there would also be a big co-working space and a maker space, which would be commercial, but where ordinary folks could buy a membership and use them. Finally, I would want it to be continuous with genuine public spaces like a botanical garden, which could be half indoor and half outside. And in the public areas there would be no music. Music tells everyone "You don't own this place!" If the mall were actually a nice place for the public to be, then the rent paid by the stores could cover the admittedly high costs of the facilities that I would want this mall to have.
My dentist is in a mall, and it's largely a "professional centre" type mall, with an immigration office, ultrasound clinic, and a small food court, more than stores. I'd personally love to see more buildings like the library at a university I went to. It's a big square with an open middle (later replaced with a skylight to keep snow out and save on heating) and the middle area features a food court with plenty of benches and tables. Then the areas around it have offices, classrooms, a tech area with 3D printers and regular printers, a music room with a digital piano and CD/Tape/Record player, and a collaboration room made for group projects and meetings that has a mini kitchen attached. It's an old building, but one of my favourites, and I'd like to see that style come back in, but perhaps even with stores on the outside instead of office and library space. It's easy to navigate, easy to see where things are through the windows in the open middle part, and central elevators make it easy to access all the rooms. The windows also have desks around them for people to be able to sit down and watch the people walking by, or ignore what's below to focus on working. It's rather brutalist compared to today's standard, but it's a brilliant design in theory, and with a few changes, it would be a wonderful mall design.
That’s how proper cities are built. Then again US cities ain’t proper.
If you ever get the chance to go to Paris, check out Les Halles - it ticks almost all of the boxes you laid out. The downsides is it's intensely busy most days, loud echoey acoustics, kinda confusing layout, and it could do with more light wells.
Most malls where I grew up are like this. Move to another country!
Except for the library and skate park idea you just described exactly what train stations are like in Tokyo and surrounding cities. Big hubs with community stuff, shopping, restaurants, and businesses. Intereconnected to tons of stuff through underground floors and above ground floors.
My mom has worked in a high end mall a little outside of Chicago in Vernon hills my whole life and it’s amazing how through the years it became more and more deserted and desolate.
They have been renovating it for years I assume in an attempt to attract people back, but now I hear they are converting it to an outdoor mall. Interesting isn’t it
There are Malls doing well in NJ but I feel that many of them cater to rich clientele by having lots of designer stores in addition to the more affordable ones. The Canada Goose stores have huge lines outside whenever I visit the mall.
I’m from NJ. Some malls are fine, such as King of Prussia mall outside of Philadelphia, one of the largest malls in the country. There are many high end brands. It’s yuge 🇺🇸
Thays because the mall needs to make money, rich people will always by stuff but poor people can't afford to waste money at malls when times are bad.
exactly the same concept some malls in germany changed to. like 20 years ago, they had basic stores and stuff but became more and more brand shops and designer stores. like skateshops but only with clothing items and stuff like that.
I helped build this mall and live in this area
Here’s the biggest problem
It’s literally in the middle of nowhere
There’s nothing around it, there’s no other reason to go over to that part of the meadow lands except to go to this mall.
You also have to use the NJ Turnpike (I-95) to get there which means you have to be mindful of the time and traffic
It’s in an awful location
"Floors of epoxy made to look like stone" is why malls always had a funny, strange sort of smell to me that I could never quite place; it was epoxy fumes (I am sensitive to that sort of thing).
America’s car dependence is what’s holding malls back
I think a biggest factor as to why malls in Asia still thrives (i.e., Philippine Malls), is the environment/climate. Compare to western region, Most Asian countries are in a hot environment so the masses are inclined to visit malls which has air-conditioning. That's why Philippine Malls are massive and grand in scale since numerous people often visits these malls. But also adding attractions like instagrammable places/decor will really bring alot of people.
Are malls now being replaced by "lifestyle centers", which seem a little more authentic but which are even more engineered?
it's funny that you say that! city beautiful made a great video on that exact subject :)
Thanks for this analysis Stewart. I don't think the "Disneyfication" of shopping malls is going to save them. The internet, combined with reduced reliance on cars over increasing concern about the changing climate, and the isolation brought about by the Covid pandemic, have fundamentally reshaped the way most people shop. Speaking personally, this has been a godsend. Due to mobility problems I can no longer get around very easily, and it would be impossible for me to even get groceries into my apartment without considerable assistance, i.e. somebody doing it for me.
Growing up in Manhattan in the 1960s, I wasn't exposed to shopping malls. Our shopping habits were more in line with 19th century practices: local stores for groceries and other day-to-day needs and big department stores for clothing, appliances, etc. I don't remember when I made my first visit to an enclosed shopping mall, but I was probably in my 20s, and I remember finding it unpleasant. The vast paved parking lot was hideous, and the interior environment of the mall itself was so artificial that I just wanted to get out as quickly as possible. I also find the musak, odors, and other subliminal marketing practices manipulative and even coercive. I want nothing to do with them.
As an aside, I live a few blocks away from the "Arcade Providence", which is purportedly the oldest shopping mall in North America. It was built in 1828 as an interior street lit by skylights and flanked by three stories of stores and fronted at each end by monumental Greek Revival porticos. The upper story stores were never viable as retail spaces, and they were recently converted into 48 micro-apartments. They are full and have a long waiting list, as do the first story stores. This may offer some ideas on how to deal with defunct shopping malls today.
It's funny you mention cars. There used to be a nearly direct bus route from my suburban area to the nearest mall (now I'd need to connect to a different one). I loved it, because I didn't have to worry about getting a ride to 5 different stores for Christmas shopping, when everything was right there, or I'd go with friends and we'd carpool even if we didn't want to go to the same stores. We could eat together in the food court much easier than trying to find one restaurant we all liked, and it was a lot more efficient than trying to get to multiple stores half way across the county from each other, because everything's right there. One mall, the one closer to me is doing okay, and there's another that seems to be mostly kid focused now (with multiple kids clothing stores, a toy store, and candy shop), but the bigger mall that would take me 2 hours to bus to (or 45 minutes by car) has had a lot of places close in it, and move to a nearby shopping district, or go out of business (like Target Canada, which still has a lot of their old stores empty). I don't like shopping districts because you have to drive between stores, and it sucks if it's raining or snowing (especially as for me, rain makes my joint pain worse). I wish malls would come back as the one stop shop idea, but with accessibility in mind, not just marketing schemes. I actually need to go to the mall to get my mom's watch fixed. The things I go for are things that can't easily be done online, like trying on clothes, getting bubble tea, and taking things in for repairs (that's the only place where you can get watches, Apple products, and some other electronics repaired in my area).
I think nothing can save them. Millennials and GenZ do their shopping online, even clothing.
@@GeraldM_inNC I do all my shopping online, and I'm a baby-boomer.
@@christopherstephenjenksbsg4944 Do you believe that malls are going extinct?
@@GeraldM_inNC Yes, I do. It may take another 20 years or so, but I don't think they will bounce back.
I grew up in the shadow of the American Dream Mall, called Xanadu back then. I then worked really close to it, watching it grow. Then I moved away, living in other parts of the country and finally I just moved back to the area. I live on Long Island now and hope to make it out to it someday. While the indoor mall in indeed dying, the outdoor mall is thriving and even showing growth.
Well I'm glad someone in the US is finally understanding this.
We have a 'mall' in my city in the UK (we call it a shopping centre). But the difference is:
it's right in the old city centre with all sorts of other businesses around it.
Buses from all over the city terminate right next to it
it has it's own long distance bus terminal to get to nearby towns and cities
It has it's own underground parking with elevators straight into the shopping level.
It has an apartment tower on site.
it ends up kind of like another shopping street that happens to be inside.
It's a hideous, brutalist construction, but it's still busy every day.
As an Architect I Love your in depth content as always. When you covered the Indoor Snow Ski Mountain I could not help to think the amount of Energy that it takes to maintain that "Ideal" experience of going down that indoor slope covered with snow. The things we do for the ideal experience.
As an architect? Why do you need to tell us youre an architect?
@@kattihatt I simply wanted to Mr. Hicks a compliment as a colleague for the great work he does in our field as stated in the first sentence.
Now I wonder, would we need less energy if everyone of the customers would travel to a place with real snow? Or is skiing only allowed to "snow people" because their ancestors moved their centuries ago? :)
To be fair to the American Dream mall, it wasn't Triple Five's original idea. The reason it took so long was because it changed owners three times (Started with Mills Corporation, then Colony Capital, and finally Triple Five), financial issues resulting from the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and the Great Recession, construction delays, and legal challenges aka classic NJ politics. An indoor ski slope may sound silly, but Dubai has one at the Mall of the Emirates that opened first in 2005. They added it to their mall because Dubai is a hot climate. The idea behind the one at the NJ mall is for those who live in NYC who don't want to (or can't) travel far to ski, as those in the city can take a NJT bus directly there from the PABT.
An example of an American mall that's thriving without needing to do anything outrageous is Newport Centre mall in downtown Jersey City. The location is quite accessible thanks to dollar vans/shuttle buses (that go up to the GWB), the PATH (from Newport station; goes to Midtown and Lower Manhattan, and Newark), and the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail (which serves most of Hudson County). The mall opened in 1987, and the area around it flourished and became urbanized because of it. Heck, they still have SEARS!
Sorry this comment is off-topic but you should do a video or series on the Palm Springs area. I would love to see your take on history of modern architecture here, and the Hollywood and political connections. I heard Disney bought a HUGE tract of land across the street from the Sunnylands estate for a residential development. You know you’re just looking for an excuse for a desert vacation next year!
Definitely!!!
I find it really interesting that malls are dying out in America of all places, while they still trive in my country, Latvia, with population smaller than most capital cities out there. Sure there are some failed projects in Riga, but in general, they are busy almost every day.
Because the digitization of society hasn't hit you guys as hard yet. Give it a few more years. The vast and sparsely populated landscapes of NA made it ground 0 for digital spaces to be favoured over physical ones.
That's because your economy is still growing ours is stagnating and starting to collapse
@@tiggytheimpaler5483 *because malls are available by walking or public transport everywhere in the world except the US that separated housing and shops.
Digitalisation doesn't explain everything, no matter how much lazy you can be , there would still be a lot of people going to the mall because they prefer seeing the products
Don't read to much into this "malls are dying in America" narrative. LOTS of super regional malls in this country are still thriving and are packed with shoppers. I used to live in Atlanta and have also lived in Houston and I can take you to a dozen malls between those two cities that are CONSTANTLY packed with shoppers and have store front occupancy ratings well over 95%. Malls in America are simply evolving. Retail of all kind was overbuilt from the 70s through the 90s and we have seen a market correction of that trend over the last 20 years. But malls that reinvested, reinvented and adapted themselves to the new market are not going away or disappearing unless they are in a local market that has somehow moved away from them because of a demographic shift.
@@ashleighelizabeth5916 yep but that being said the "eerie" feeling that malls produce (like being a scene of an horror movie/video game) is not that much understood outside america because they are not subject of these slow dying process.
I just wish malls incorporated more creeks, plant walls/waterfalls, a mini amusement park, indoor swim park, and arcade, and a skating rink, affordable gym membership- I would definitely go to the mall more often especially if they had more healthy eating options there- not just fast food like chik-fil-a.
As a European with much more shops on the streets, it's actually nice to just shop outside if you're willing to do the effort. I love feeling each season as I stroll through the streets. Not everything has to be in perfect climate-control.
North American cities are beginning to adopt 5-over-1 neighbourhoods with a commercial layer on the ground floor, so that people can just walk to the stores below their apartments easily, or in their neighbourhoods. A much more European approach. That's actually part of what's killing malls. American malls existed for suburbs, where the only way to get to a store was to drive so all the stores may as well be in the same place, but urbanization is making them nearly as useless as online shopping.
In Texas I avoid outdoor shopping strips in 100°F/37°C+ weather
I live in Peru, currently in the capital and I have been able to notice the differences of these "malls" from the markets that were in my home town. In the markets things were simple, some posts and a high ceiling so that there was space to stack the boxes of fruit and other products, the floor was almost always dirty and in fact it used to be just soaked earth. You would see fruit peels on the floor and they would yell at you from time to time to let the "porters" pass (men who carried boxes on their backs from one side to the other), there was a lot of noise and movement, sometimes I ended up with a bruise for bump into someone Then I came to the modern malls of the capital, everything was clean, shiny, acclimatized, very fake and people also behaved differently so I had to get used to it.
It’s called Progress. We can’t all be old fashioned Luddites. You accept the good and the bad (Pray the Good outweighs the Bad). The one thing constant is Change.
@@inisipisTV you must believe yourself to be very smart for calling someone a luddite huh?
Pero si la tecnología solo magnifica la cultura que ya se tiene en el Perú. Si las provincias recibieran el mismo avance tecnológico seguramente sus supermercados lucirían parecidos. No creo que ses un problema que se pueda resolver desde afuera hacia dentro sino al revés
@@everab1209en todos los departamentos hay minimo 1 mall xd no se porq la gente piensa que Lima es Tokio y el resto del Peru tribus alejadas de la civilizacion
@@XTheLolX301 Pues no es como que sea tan falso. Solo que el Internet ha hecho trabajo acortando esas brechas. ¿Has visitado distritos de sierra que no sean la capital?
Malls in Asia and Europe are pedestrian friendly, you don't need cars to go there. In USA, car centrism is backfiring them now.
My first thought was "why?", but then you said it has been in construction for 16 years. It looks like a cool place. My country has had an indoor ski slope for as long as I can remember, so I was surprised it was the first in North America. It is still functioning as far as I know, so it could work. It looks like a cool place to go for entertainment. Imagine if you had a fast train directly into the mall or next to it! You could go there, enjoy the day and just go back. In Rotterdam (Netherlands) they also have a trainstop next to a big shopping centre, and it is always a busy stop.
Im in AZ, and like elsewhere in the US, malls here are dying, but i was shocked to visit one that was actually a little busy, and i wish i knew why. Maybe because for the most part its not enormous, most of the store fronts are utilized, and the movie theater is one of the fancy ones with reclining chairs. In AZ, there's a huge advantage to malls in the summer, but I know for myself, the idea of wandering a mall and seeing all these objects i can't afford is just existentially depressing. I buy what few things i need online instead.
Here in Brazil, the malls still thriving, because the malls are a safe space where you can go shopping without the fear of getting robbed, not only by the public but by the shop owners too. In special in cities like mine (São Paulo) where space is limited, so in a place with size of an 1/5 of a square you can fit inside an entire square with market, barbers, shop, restaurants, cinema etc.
I rarely do any shopping in a mall. The clothing stores don't have my size, usually, and there's a lot of stuff in malls that is just overpriced junk. If I do go into a shooping mall, it's to shop at Walmart, if it's one of the anchor stores. The rest of the time, I get my stuff online.
There is a small neighbourhood mall very close to where I live (it's pretty much just steps away), and it thrives because it sits next to an apartment complex of about 10 buildings where a lot of retirees live. It has pretty much everything that retirees might need on a routine basis as there is a chain grocery store, a chain drug store and medical supplies store, a chain footwear store, and a small sit-down restaurant, to name. Many of the stores and food vendors outside of the grocery store or drug store are small independent shops.
There are two larger malls, one at each end of the city. All of these malls are doing well because they are located close to large residential neighbourhoods, and they don't try to be all things to all people. We did have two other malls, but both closed because of changing demographics in their respective neighbourhoods. The downtown shopping mall that was opened in 1989 also closed for a variety of reasons including the arrival of online shopping and the lack of readily available, free parking that is plentiful at typical suburban shopping malls.
Pretty well all of the downtown malls in Ontario, Canada closed up for the same reasons. Initially, they were seen as a way to shore up crumbling tax revenues and economic activity in core areas. Some survived and did well in the beginning because of the large numbers of office workers situated in downtown cores, but as offices started moving out and away or downsizing, the numbers of office workers declined. Some of these malls have reconfigured in an attempt to survive, but they're not shopping venues anymore. Many of them, however, are being torn down.
I didn't expect this video to inform me that "mall smell" is in fact a real thing. Im glad Im not weird for thinking that there is in fact a mall smell
i can tell the psychology of malls in the modern age has changed so much bc that 5 second clip of the eaton centre nearly gave me a panic attack where as i used to love going downtown and spending like 7 hours there as a kid. they used to have benches and places to hang out but the last time i went i couldnt find a bench for the life of me. friends used to hang out in the aisles of the indigo reading books and having snacks but now they have staff patrolling to make sure you cant sit on the floor. malls are now dreaded places because their only goal is to have you in stores spending money without rest. when i was younger we only bought things at the mall maybe 40% of the time we visited, it was more of a place to hang out. now all those courtyard spaces are empty savannas of vast flooring rather than friendly spaces to hang out and catch up with friends before spending some time smelling yummy soap in bodyshop.
The problem, I see is people in the USA are tired to spending time traveling far to go to mall, where they can get it via online shopping, and for cheaper prices.
Personally there is no" third space" in the suburbs of America. Most people spend money eating out once a week.
The mall itself is part of the price thing: in the 1980s I was in the hobby shop business and we could lower prices by about 8 to 12 percent across the board when a mall lease/rent was not a part of the store's financial equation.
I went to the Mall of America circa 2006. I entered on the highest level and the only thing open up there was a Hooters. I've heard that it's only gotten worse since.
If the point of a mall is to make money then you need to make sure that you have a customer base to make money off of. The number one thing killing malls isn't e-commerce, its the destruction of the middle class that used to shop there. This isn't going to be fixed with fancier architecture or amenities.
Another example of shopping/market place that designed with nature/greenery in mind is The Jewel at Changi Airport Singapore. This airport mall serves as a connection between all 4 terminals and also serves as a good resting area for those transiting flights via Singapore. Now thats a green/natural mall!
You know where shopping malls don't die? In the cities. You know where they do? In the suburbs.
I first saw those fake trees when I lived in Macau and visited one of their casinoes. Brazil shopping mall culture is still alive and kicking, but fake trees would certainly be a very hard sell around here. Most shopping malls that do have plants, usually have pretty modest amounts of plants that can be feasibly cared for.
The mall is in my area is so plain, I kind of like the surrealist nature aspects of the other malls, it's like a weird aesthetic that is uncannily beautiful.
I think it all depends. Malls in middle America seem to be struggling more than the ones that are in the northeast where they have a lot more concentrated wealth. When I go into places like Roosevelt Field on Long Island or Garden St Plaza or Short Hills Mall in New Jersey all I see are huge crowds on a daily basis.
I got into architecture to create the imaginary so i love these efforts to fully build the environment.
*In Cali, only the really big, bougie malls/outlets are still thriving - like the one in Brea, SD, and South Coast Plaza... but ya, at lot of the smaller ones are pretty dead. I went to the Puente Hills one and there were so many stores that closed. There were barely any people, even on a Sat. I think the only thing keeping it afloat is its movie theater - but theaters are also facing trouble*
Can you not speak for Cali when you are mentioning just like 2 in Southern California? 🤣
All that effort in manipulating customer physiology and they still don’t stock shit that men want to buy.
In the small city I live I we have one remaining, struggling, mall. It seems that all malls are well on their way to becoming liminal spaces. Great video Stewart, you are really good at this, you ought to start your own UA-cam channel.😊
Several malls in my area are dying but the largest one in the state is still doing well. Luckily an entire wing of this mall changed to stores that the local population wants instead of just the same chain stores you can find anywhere.
NJ resident here. A week or 2 ago it was on the news about a traffic jam at American Dream because no one knows how to get out of there. The signs are confusing. LIterally every single thing about that place is a disaster. I even made plans for one of the stores that was going in there. The entire process of that mall getting built was a complete disaster.
Most of the Malls in the Philippines in particular had become innovative because it became "Township" as we call it here, its not only a Mall but besides of it are tall Residential Condominiums or sometimes Office Towers, so there's always a captured market.
Malls in US stopped having bookstores and music stores. Once they were done, so was I
I think that, if a mall is placed close enough to an urban city, the ends of the walkways between all the stores should be connected to popular pedestrian streets to integrate the mall into the urban streetscape, so that you can walk from your house onto a street with a coffee shop, then follow that street for less than a mile (with apartment buildings, offices, and shops along that street), and arrive at the mall, making the mall behave like just another part of the city, but with less housing, less cars, and more visiting people.
Malls may be dying but not everywhere. There are 2 traditional malls within 15 minutes of my house (Indiana). Both are always full of shoppers and busy, even mid-week afternoons. If a store closes, the spot is only empty for a few weeks and another store opens in that area. The one exception is the large empty space where Sears used to be at one of the malls. There's nothing special like theme parks or mini-golf or whatever... just stores, movie theater, and food court.
Dieing malls must be a midwest thing. Not up here in the northeast.
Jefferson Pointe and Glenbrook Square?
Strange...despite the death of malls, there seems to be a growing want to keep the classic mall aesthetic alive. Mostly due to the fact that malls, to many, were more than just places to buy stuff but also served as a sort of community center where people could interact and have fun together. Heck, people are kind of hoping malls would come back due to the social graces that were lost due to the pandemic...almost as if we need something to help people relearn how to interact with one another.
In fact, note the rise in the popularity of Vaporwave/Mallsoft music as a partial hint to how people miss the old mall aesthetic.
Here in CZ we often have hypermarkets as a part of the mall (Walmart style - I don't recall that in the US), so the main reason for many people to go there is to do bigger grocery shopping. And while they're already there, it's a good opportunity to do other stuff that shops or services provide. Many teenagers loiter in the mall, which for me is kinda sad, but it adds some foot traffic.
I recently looked on google maps how my local mall in the Netherlands has changed over the years, it used to have a small pathetic entrance with some bike racks and a huge parking lots, and that was your only way in. Nowadays there's a big plaza with a fountain, shops on the outside, apartments, and it's a lot more accessible for people walking. They ironically changed it to become more like the city centers that inspired the mall to keep it relevant.
As an American I like malls in Europe (well the one I was in in Portugal and Lisbon)
They are compact, fit in with the city and grow up not out.
When I was staying in said cities I needed something, in and they were nearby.
In and out in 25 minutes.
In my country (Australia) in my city Sydney, shopping malls so far haven't been abandon thankfully. Though it is still car dependent unfortunately. Though they do have options for public transport nearby somewhat
We have reletively few yanky style malls in US. The reason US mall's are in dire straits is due to their size anti-competitive practices. US malls are "destinations" they are usually purpose built locations isolated from the existing commercial and retail infrastructure. The idea being malls compete with other malls rather then servicing the local area.
In Aus it's the opposite, most of our shopping centres have been built up over time, they are all built up out of downtown and "main street" areas increasing in size as the local population increased. In fact one of the starkest difference between Aus and US malls is that US malls rarely have supermarkets (what the yanks call grocery stores) Where as in Aus they are the tentpole of Shopping Centres it's so important that owners will bend over backwards to attract the like of coles, woolies and aldi to their centres.
I'm also not sure what you think "car dependency" is shopping centres in Aus certainly aren't. The overwhelming majority of shopping centres in Aus use shopping centres as major bus stops on routes (especially in Sydney) and there is usually more housing density around shopping centres due to their location.
Most of the malls where I live at always have life, and I live in the US. There always people around doing stuff, and the weekends are crowded! It’s weird finding out that other malls in the US aren’t being visited as often, because they’re just as fun to me as they were when I was a kid. If your ever have a free day that you just wanna chill out at a mall, do it.
In contrary, malls are doing well in Asia - particularly the Philippines. It's because developers know how infrastructure was neglected in those countries so they strategically place their retail hubs to major cities to provide mass interchanges. People also appreciate how malls seem to look so classy and appropriate that's why it's well-received in Asia.
As a Twin Cities resident, MoA, sometimes called Bigdale, is a place I used to visit regularly when I drove buses that terminated at its recently renovated multimodal transit station. Minnesota will probably remain the last bastion of indoor malls thanks to our frigid winters. The first modern mall, Southdale which dates to the 50s, is only a few miles away from MoA and still thriving. Rosedale, on the north side of St Paul is doing well too, having recently added an aquarium and small petting zoo, plus a von Maur to replace Herberger's. It's trying to be a pocket sized MoA. Brookdale failed years ago. Ridgedale is holding its own, but Maplewood is definitely struggling with low occupancy and loads of crappy, independent "boutiques." Can you guess why MoA is nicknamed Bigdale?
Northtown is dead.
The fake-ness more often than not is so cringeworthy. Excellent material as always! - cheers from Brisbane
In the Casablanca , Morocco metropolitan area the malls there are booming. They not only have the stores but also a lot of entertainment for families and something for everyone. Just about every mall has a grocery stores , dentists and even condos, apartments and hotels. Wish they did this in the United States
I'm married to a moroccan and I want to move there so badly. He's from North east. morocco. They barely even aircondition our mall here in Texas. It's about 81* inside.
@@mohammedjeffali1076 Oh Wow. Eastern Morocco is nice but it can be very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. Life in Eastern Morocco is very slow go. No big cities or metro areas and it is very cheap. You can get a nice 3 bedroom house with a yard for less than 50,000 Dollars. In Casablanca 50,000 will not even get you a tiny studio. Good luck
Malls are already basically obsolete. Online shopping and curbside delivery of goods has made it unnecessary to get dressed, fight traffic, park, walk the mall, try on clothes, check out your purchases, and then reverse the entire process. I've been buck-naked shopping since the first days of being able to shop online. I never go to the mall or even strip malls unless I am desperately bored, which basically never happens. When I stumbled into the local mall 4th of July, 2022, I was shocked that most of the typical retailers had moved out. The mall looked like a flea market, save for Macy's, Dillards, and Penneys.
Malls are dying where the middle class is DEAD, they are thriving and even being built where the middle class is moving.
You'll see high end malls built and thriving in new Florida communities, while they're dying in older ones where the "working poor" are who don't have money to shop or sustain them. That or they have "SEARS" and other once great, but now crap brands. Oh also lets also remember,AIRPORT MALLS are THRIVING!
I'm a bit horrified to learn they use scent chemicals in mall air - a good friend of mine is terribly allergic to artificial scents, especially the base "fragrance" chemical. My area lost an iconic theme park to a giant shopping mall; ironic to see that now theme parks are getting built INSIDE malls. We have a dead mall about 20 miles away and the forests 1 mile away from it were clear cut so that a NEW outlet mall could be built. It's STUPID.
Always enjoy your work, Mr. Hicks.
I've often wondered why the mall formula never experimented with housing of any kind to create complete car free communities. We've traditionally done as much with other parts of our culture. Education, for example. College campuses often come with adjacent housing and retail. In fact, if they don't, they get chastised as "commuter campuses".
As for the death of malls, blaming the malls is a shallow analysis. You wouldn't blame the American middle class for its own death, would you?
Malls wouldn’t try to create car-free communities, that would mean people no longer paying lots of money for cars, and paying lots of money to try to maintain them!
Malls and cars are designed to work _together_ to drain people’s bank accounts.
@@b1ff Yes. I'm not suggesting they would be like current American malls which are dying nation wide. That's my point, typical malls don''t incorporate housing or transportation. But running a light rail line through a mall, for example, wouldn't be stretching civic design standards.
Victor Gruen's initial vision and plan for the mall was to incorporate housing, recreational facilities, as well as schools. Sadly, these elements were removed from the final plan for the first mall.
Housing is not incorporated into American malls because of building codes and crime.
malls are still a big thing here in Canada however i can safely say that this kind of mall would not work here in Canada because of 2 reasons: Its too big and lacks transit system to get people there.
Every mall here in Canada are built near major highways and have at least a major bus transit built in the mall so even if people dont want to go shop at the mall, they still need to go through it to get where they want to go. Some malls take it a step further by having a train stain or even airport and seaport.
If its too big with too many stores, the upkeep will cost too much and most stores will never be visited because too many options and then comes the even harder task of finding enough businesses to open shop in your mall. A decent size would a mall with anywhere from 2 to 3 levels with the food court at the center and a quick way from there to the transit station so people that are travelling can stop for lunch and while they eat they should be able to see most of the stores from the food court so they can see something nice to buy before leaving or are reminded they need new pants or whatever from looking. If the mall is too big, they wont have time to look at all the stores while eating andd will take too long to visit everything.
So thats why this mall was doomed to fail from the start.
Instead of building on big mall, i would've built 10 medium ones with anywhere from 50 to 300 small stores/restaurants and 2 to 5 large ones. Thats it. Any bigger and its like using money instead of wood for your fire. It will look great at first with a much bigger flame at first, but it will also die out way faster and you'll be freezing for the rest of the night while your smart neighbour enjoys his wood fire.
-
In the US theres a saying: Go Big Or Go Home
But the way i see it, well its sounds more like this: Go Stupid Or Stay Safe
American consumerism frightens me to the point that I am flabbergasted knowing that there is sound engineering and specific architecture to manipulate shopping behavior. That sounds creepy!
The artificiality of it all, only to promote consumerism, is very off-putting.
Malls can certainly have a surreal feeling to them,but even though their nature is purely commercial,and they’re often sparsely populated,they can sometimes be rather aesthetically pleasing
usually only taubman malls had that architectural effort put into them
I don't know. As someone in Toronto Canada I think all the major malls are fairing pretty well these days (Eaton, Yorkdale, Vaughan Mills, Square One, to name a few)...
“Without too much of a health hazard” 🤮
Also, one of the best parts of skiing in the mountains (or literally anywhere outside) is the view of mountains, trees, the forest and sky- it’s breathtaking. The only thing making you gasp here is the snowcat fumes.
They're electric
Nature/trees in malls: So true. In Plano Texas, the Collin Creek Mall was built 1981 with 4 anchor stores (Sanger-Harris, Sears, Dillard's, JCP). I had experiences with the mall in the late 80s. As a kid, I loved the waterways they had doing the main mall corridors. There were small, with lots of plants - real ones. Lots of coins in the fountains. Trees everywhere. So there were small bridges to cross or places to sit and relax in the middle. So it wasn't easy to zig-zag from one side to the other. Visually, I loved it. Around 2000, the mall got rid of most of that. A few plant/fountain areas remained near some escalators but were effectively dead. But now the floor was vast and open between all the stores on the 1st level (a 2-level mall). As typical, they put retail kiosks to fill in the now bare empty space. You know, those wall-less shops with 1-2 workers with 60~200ft of "space". The mall looked... meh, generic. No sense of wonder. And like most malls in America - it started dying around 2008. turning into ghost towns. Its doors were shut in 2019. They had a party, at least, with early 1980's theme. Thousands of people showed up.
But here's the kicker, news showed pictures of when the Mall first opened up. And WOW. IT had about double the plant/fountain space that I never saw. It had a huge fountain in the middle of the mall. The place was not usable for wheelchair access in many places. The waterways down the four corridors to the anchor stores were MUCH bigger than what I saw as teen. It looked beautiful.
First thing they got rid of: the fountain in the middle. That was understandable. It made it very crumble-some to go to any of the 4 corridors. A lot of traps, that would make people go back and even fall into the water. You could be in a store and walk off the floor into 1~2 feet of water.
They removed too much. It made it easier to clean the area since it became a giant floor. And no places for people to fall into plants, dirt or water... it's boring. Look up the photos. "collin creek mall 1981"
They are building the area with Apartment buildings, big-box stores and retained the core of the mall to be a new mall again.
I grew up in Illinois in a rural area and strip malls were all I knew. I have lived the past eight years in Hoboken/Jersey City, and two before that in Manhattan. I've waited in hours long lines at the Soho Zara just to try on a blouse. I've got my hair lit on fire by a kid at the Newport Mall. Nothing has made me feel more anxious and idk how else to explain it, but sad, than the American Dream Mall. Been there several times but each time I feel miserable while there. I'll stick to Newport and our JC Penny's and Cheesecake Factory lol.
Most malls aren't giant tourist attractions like the ski slope one you mentioned but they all suffer the same problem. Low wages and inflation are reducing the amount of disposable income families have.
Malls are filled with general merch stores that aren't needs. Many turn into empty spots with a Belk being the busiest store. Tourists and locals aren't excited about going to them. Local business owners also can't afford to pay mall rent so smaller specialized stores aren't there either.
American malls should convert to a more Asian-style where grocery stores, living space, and niche shops are right next to the big chains. If the mall is right next door to where you live, why not go?
A lot of malls in America are exactly like that. Memorial City Mall and the Galleria Mall in Houston are like that. a lot of malls are still thriving today here depending on the location
Lol try the Philippines. Malls here thrive because of convenience. We have a grocery store and the theater all within the same building. It sounds odd to many people but it works and keeps malls busy hence making it relevant.
Weird that the malls around me have cut down on fountains and there's not that much greenery anymore... :/ One mall used to have a dramatic water spout that would go up to like 15 feet high in the air and then calm down, it was neat. I've been to the mall in cold snap in winter to get some walking inside, and I wish it was actually more than shopping.
part of the problem is the way malls are designed in the USA, they are maximied for money spending down to the location of shops. I think if they were able to 1)mixing it up 2) adding more entertainment features and 3)trying to beautify malls. make them locations or like an indoor riveralk, something thats unique.and WALKABLE! transit oriented with no large parking lots
Hearing about all the psychological tricks retailers use in service of raw consumerism gives me the willies. It just sounds to me like something right out of They Live. The worst part is that I know that despite my knowledge of such tactics, I'm still just as vulnerable to them because they operate below consciousness.
Out of curiosity, what level of tricks would be an acceptable to you?
I hate the fact malls are dying. Buying clothes on the internet is less than ideal. Where I'm from, all the businesses moved out of the mall and across the highway, literally, into a newly constructed mega strip center. And, the strip center has more consumers than the mall, which is outside!! Why would you want to walk from store to store in the cold? Why didn't you patronize those businesses when they were across the street? It's bizarre.
I haven't been in a nice mall in ages. This video kind of made me want to visit one.
I am genuinely curious if there is a way to make the mall design sustainable and beneficial. It sounds like a nice mental exercise.
attach a train station and put other kinds of establishments there. also put it in large urban areas not ghost town suburbs
I miss the indoor malls of the 70s and 80s. My parents would take my brother and I shopping with them about once a week. These days they have been replaced with townhomes and smaller shopping centers and have none of the charm they used to.
I'm a Northern New Jersey girl. Going to the mall every single weekend is in my blood, and I will never stop. 🤣 I live just down the road from American Dream and go once a week. It's a great place that provides lots of jobs, and most of the trees and plants I have seen are all real. Most malls here aren't really dead, and you still struggle to find parking on a Saturday, but the smaller ones without much to offer are kind of on the downward spiral to closure. Anyway! Interesting to watch.
American Dream has been a great starter job for me. My sister and I both work there now and it does feel like a little community.
I'm dying to find out:
Is it *Taylor ham* or *pork roll* ?