It's nice to see a different perspective on malls as civic spaces. In the Philippines and in many Southeast Asian countries, malls are not dying, they're thriving. They are a one-stop shop. They have clothing stores, hardware, grocery, pharmacy, churches, exhibition centers, cinemas, restaurants, gardens, banks, office spaces, and more. In contrast to American Malls, Southeast Asian malls also double as transit hubs. Malls here do serve as third places, because of lack of open space, and the want to escape the heat of the tropics. And you can spend the whole day without buying anything inside the malls here.
Malls in the US were doing okay until the late 1990s. E-Commerce really killed them. Also, there were just *way* too many malls built in the 80s and 90s (the US has an insane amount of retail space per capita compared to any other country). They were built on tax credits and started poaching each other's business. A new mall would open and stores and customers would move to that one, leaving a blighted mall behind. Mall owners also became more aware of how expensive they were to maintain compared to traditional shopping centers. The rise of free-standing "big box" stores like Walmart, Target, Costco, Sam's Club, etc. really cut into their business as well. Some malls are doing fine, others are just getting by, and many are failing, being torn down and redeveloped into outdoor "lifestyle centers" or into new housing developments. Malls in the US will often fight against having a transit stop there (at least they used to) because they think it will bring an "undesirable element" to the mall. With some exceptions, they are meant to be accessed by people in cars, period.
@Zaydan Alfariz there's a shift in what people do in malls, especially during and after the pandemic. The mall nearest me replaced some of its cinemas to more restaurant spaces. Some stores have closed and are yet to be replaced, but business is picking up after loosened restrictions. E-commerce does have its merits, but we cannot deny that malls here in SE Asia provide a different purpose to people compared to its American counterparts, thus making it more resilient to changing times.
@Zaydan Alfariz Malls that are "dying" in Jakarta are those that generally don't offer other experience than shopping tho, so it's still more or less the same as the reason why malls in the US are dying. But if you've been to an American mall, the difference to SEA mall is about the difference between heavens and earth lol. Malls in the US are generally suburban with huge parking lots, very spread out (like, only one or two storeys but wide enough that you have to visit different parts by car), and offer very little entertainment than shopping.
Also dense residential area around (or even on top of) malls are very common in SEA, ensuring that the malls will always have regular customers. One in my city is surrounded by dozens of public housing buildings.
It’s very rare in the USA to have a grocery store. I even count Target and Walmarts as grocery stores if they’re in a mall. There are a couple wegmans in malls too. Some have Costco’s included as well
@@MrJamieBattle That's sad. IMO the strongest selling point of shopping centers is that they can concentrate multiple categories of shops in one easily available spot, so it's absurd to hear that they regularly lack the most essential shop there is. When I visit one of the shopping centres near my home (all accessible by public transport and on foot, naturally), we usually end the trip with a stop at one of the supermarkets there so I don't have to spend time going somewhere else afterwards.
Usually, they don't. I don't think I've ever seen a grocery store in a US mall. They're mostly dominated (I'd say 90%) by clothing/apparel stores with some "specialty stores" that sell things like electronics, kitchenware, gifts, and novelties, with a few restaurants and snack places.
@@danielkelly2210 of course, in the countries I've been to it's also the norm that the center is dominated by clothing shops and the occasional hardware, interior or electronics shop, but supermarkets are basically compulsory. My nearest shopping center right now has two supermarkets, and yet another two across the (one-lane w/ bike path) street next to it. :D Whoever plans this stuff in the US has a lot to learn if they want to make people happy to be there.
@@skitlus335 I won't pretend to know why this isn't the case in the US, but it just isn't. Though I have a few ideas... one is Americans have been conditioned to buy huge amounts of groceries at once. The typical US grocery store is located in a strip mall or power center. Loading all those groceries is easier if you can just drive right up to the front or wheel your cart out to your car, something you can't do in an enclosed mall.
5:00 I can't believe someone would be genuinely surprised by how healthy they could be (at any age) after walking every day. It's so sad how our infrastructure and health are physically intertwined for the worse in this country
If you want to walk then do it. But blaming design of store for people lack of exercise is stupid. Meanwhile most people do not live within walking distance to most store unless they live in a city. Or is there suppose to have store every block so people can walk to them. Meanwhile if you have problems with the design go complain to the city council who approve this stuff. Oh yea people never show up for that or even show up to vote for the people who make the choices that effect them the most. Which is your city, country and state elected officials and not the one in Washington DC. If American want to complain maybe they should understand the system and how it works. It is like people whining about corporations and yet those are business you could be a part owner of just by buying the stock and be part of the profits or loses.
@@JAM661 It's extremely hard to unfuck 70 years of shitty city design. In a properly designed society you do not have to own a personal means of transportation to survive. Most people don't live in walking distance to a store because it's illegal to build anything other than single family housing in most areas and the stores don't coexist alongside housing. If you had a community design that allows walking as a means of transport people would walk. If your life is like the majority of Americans the most walking done in a week is to and from a car. Again this was decided as car sales took off decades ago and the infrastructure is already in place. Similar to internet, since companies own cable lines they can have monopolies and jack prices. Ideally the lines would be government owned just like electricity and competition would actually exist. Sure if thigs were just getting started a vote would do something. That's why so many young people are frustrated because they have to deal with the ignorance of the past without any means to make a meaningful difference within their own lives. Just because you have a vote or have a dollar to spend doesn't mean that one person will make an impact. It takes a majority and a fair system which we don't currently have.
It's a bit ironic how these elderly people drive to a mall to have a walk. I just realize how losing one's licence must be hell for the average elderly American ! . My father had to give uo his licence age 82, because he couldn't pass the tests anymore . Luckily he can bike , walk and take public transport. Otherwise he would be stuck .Or maybe the U.S is more lenient about testing old drivers ?
As a kid, I've always loved the idea of living in a mall, and so do many others. Malls have lots of potential, developers just don't like taking risks. If you actually fleshed out Gruen's idea, you'd have an indoor downtown with residential spaces, shops, medical facilities, etc. These large concrete shells exist everywhere. What if we kept the storefronts and turned the rest of the empty big boxes into housing? Then expand by eating away at the massive parking lots. Provide a transit link directly to downtown. Now, you've built an indoor car-independent suburb. Perfect for a place like Tucson with a hot climate. But we should flesh out Victor Gruen's idea, the world deserves to see at least one example of what could have been.
Same i wanted to live in a mall to like the stores at the second floor could be apartments. also some malls in asia have train systems in them bc they are really big
😮 I never thought of it like that! It sounds like a futuristic city and it's sad that the decisions made in the 1950s took that future away from us. The developers knew what they were doing when they shutdown Victor's idea. I agree lets bring it on
I believe that's called an "arcology" where people live in a single ginormous monolithic building that contains apartments, retail shops, restaurants, bars, schools, hospital, recreational facilities with a pool and playground, a small sports complex with bowling and tennis and volleyball, corporate offices, professional services, etc. Sure, you're still gonna want to leave and travel to visit friends and relatives or just go shopping somewhere else once in a while, so you're still gonna need to own a car (and there's nothing wrong with that -- it's called freedom and convenience created by technological progress) If done right, it sounds ideal. But if done wrong, it could become a authoritarian communist slum.
His original vision was actually more akin to the life style center, but he was never able to make it correctly. He honestly should’ve work with Disney to design the mall as he had the same ultimate vision as Walt.
That’s an interesting idea. You could turn an empty department store into housing by putting up new walls in it. No pointless demolition and it pays respect to the mall.
way more than 2/3 empty. parking lots are designed for what used to be maximum capacity on black friday but these days there's less in person shoppers even on black friday.
They weren't so empty when they were built. Today, they've been replaced by the internet, and cheaper free standing locations. I agree they should've been knocked down and rezoned more than a decade ago, but the investment groups that own them would rather leave them rotting than spend any money on them. (and no one is going to pay what they think they used to be worth, because the building sitting on it is beyond worthless -- a great deal of money will be required to remove it.)
Malls had a fatal flaw. The rent is only affordable for big corporations. The average person can't open up a business there. The suburban sprawl is just built into the design that was already there.
Yeah, years ago a friend of mine wanted to open a kiosk at a mall. But it never happened cause it turned out rent would've been $10,000/month! I'm not even talking about a store. This is just one of those little kiosks in the walkway between the stores.
It depends. When a mall starts to lose its anchor stores, the rent on smaller units can drop significantly. Our local mall now has four spaces rented to a non-chain furniture store, plus boutique-type non-chain stores like a candy store, costume jewelry store, wig store, and boot store. That's one of the signs that a mall is in trouble, in fact--lots of mom-and-pop stores replacing national chains. (We lost our Sears three years ago and our Forever 21 shortly thereafter.)
@@Gail1Marie our mall starting losing big box stores then whole sections were shut down. We list bigger box anchor stores ..now it's closed and being torn down.
Yes! You're so right! Also, if for some reason a store has to open a little late because the key-holder didn't make it there on time (car wreck, blizzard, ect.), they are fined, very heavily I might add. If a store decides to not open on a Sunday for instance, they pay a hefty fine each week for that. Also in the contract between the store and the Mall, every 5-10 years a store must do a complete remodel/face-lift to bring it up to the latest trends in design! ... which can be a financial disaster to a mom & pop store.
I don't think malls are 100% bad. I like the fact that they're walkable and being indoors in a climate controlled environment is great if it's really cold or really hot outside. I also quite like the fact that some of them have play areas for kids, food courts, fountains, trees etc. They're especially good when they're in a city centre and have good transit access, plus entertainment options like cinemas nearby. What I dislike is when they're on the edge of town and your only way to get there is by car and the huge car parks surrounding them (making them look ugly on the outside). I also dislike the privately owned nature of them, with private security guards walking around making sure you're not misbehaving. It would be great to have a covered shopping area in a downtown with all of that stuff, but that's publicly owned, where citizens have the same rights as on a public street. Places like this do exist in Europe and the UK, but not many of them are truly publicly owned unfortunately.
I've heard malls are a good place to play Pokemon Go. In winter, I drive around to play. Being able to walk around a mall would be nice. No malls near enough to me, though.
Excellent point! My college town had a mall anchoring the downtown. You could park at the mall, walk through and shop at the mall, and popped out the back onto Main Street and do more shopping.
@@docvideo93 ... sounds like the one in Urbana IL, there was also a large hotel w/a castle theme. The restaurant opened onto the mall, and could be used by all. Not sure it still exists, last time I was there around 2000-2005, it was dying then.😥
All stores are privately owned. Every single store you have ever entered is privately owned, can have security guards (many do) and can toss you out for literally any reason they want. This belief that stores have to be open for everyone is some weird brain gymnastics certain demographics have began thinking...which is why so many stores are shutting down now. Thieves and those who want to defame and damage at random need to be kept out of stores. Those stores on the public street can toss you out just as quickly as well. The security guards making sure you aren't misbehaving, are doing what police should be doing everywhere else. In small towns you see police walking the main areas just like a security guard walks in a mall. To stop people from misbehaving. If security/police are visible and seen being active it keeps miscreants from doing things and they move on to easier targets. Why do you hate the privately owned nature of them? You have never had to work for, or work with the government have you? Private industry does in a day what takes the government a week or two. This is not an exaggeration. If we privatized more of what our government controls in a vice grip, things would happen faster while being both safer and more efficient/user friendly.
I've seen my local mall get rid of the "hangout " aspect. They stopped the mall walkers, teens aka mall rats . And the movie theater, arcade.. guess what? They lost all the regular customers they had... people want more then the gap and Macy's.. malls are committing retailing suicide
They even got rid of things like the fountains where people used to gather and socialize while their spouse or parents shopped. Now the only seating is in the food court. Even the food court seating is just for eating, not socializing.
When light rail transit was built from Minneapolis to Bloomington in 2004 or so, Mall of America was adamantly against having a train station next to the Mall. They relented when 1) they saw how many people were crossing the street to enter from the mall from the train station, and 2) they finally realized that most of their customers were coming from south Minneapolis, Richfield, and Bloomington, because they could not compete with malls deeper in suburbia. Ten years later, the line was extended to provide easy access to the mall. Now thanks to a 2019 renovation, the train stops under the mall, and it is so easy to get to the mall, many people take the train from MSP airport to the Mall when they have a long layover. There's a real lesson in the potential for malls to benefit from rail transit.
I like the Minneapolis light rail system, and wouldn't go to a Twins game any other way (I park at Ft. Snelling). But when the light rail was connected from downtown to MOA, crime at MOA increased (to include shootings and even murders). I don't know of an easy answer to the problem, but if people don't feel a space is safe, they won't go there.
@@Gail1Marie - That's a bit like blaming the divorce rate on the introduction of microwave ovens into American homes. It's been scientifically proven that as soon as people started using microwaves in American homes in the 1970s, more married couples started getting divorced. You can't argue with the statistics!
@@pacificostudios So what's your explanation for the increase in shootings at MOA? I can't remember a single one before the light rail was connected. Why did MOA have to institute rules requiring teens to have adult chaperones, and limit the number of teens who can congregate together? If you don't have access to a car, how do you think you got to MOA?
@@Gail1Marie I think that's more correlation than causation. Since there are more people in a given place due to easier access via the light rail, there's simply more people that could commit crime. It would be more interesting if the crime rate per visitor increased with the access to light rail. Shootings, meanwhile, seem like a mostly american thing that is drawn to any place with a large concentration of people, like a successful mall, a school, or a nightclub. As far as I'm aware, the malls in my country don't have the same crime and violence issue as in the U.S. Maybe because all the entrances have guards posted to search for banned items, like firearms. Ditto on the train stations having x-ray scanners plus the guards.
I live in Asia and they refuse to build malls anymore unless they can attach a condo and/or office spaces along with it to guarantee foot traffic. The area I was living in during the pandemic lockdowns had a mall, apartment, park, lake, and hospital right next to it for people to easily access. Such good infrastructure.
Most new malls in the US are like that. They are mixed-use. One area of the property has apartments. This video is looking at malls built in the 1970's. Much has changed since then.
In Norway, they're often built around transit hubs. So if you're in say, Bergen West, your local hub is going to be Loddefjord, which again connects you to other places. Which means that you're going to pass by that place anyway, so you're pretty much guaranteed to have a bunch of people showing up on the mall anyway. They also offer park&ride parking out of the goodness of their hearts, and definitively not because it means more people will stop by the mall. The mall also have stuff like the library, social services, etc. attached, so you have plenty of reasons for stopping by. Those malls are not going under anytime soon, but they're also not quite as large as the US ones. They're more like a small bet on the future that paid off, and then they've been added to, or removed from until it grows into the size that works. Kind of a Strong Malls approach I guess?
@@mananshah9015 Well these types of malls are almost a given in new (90s onwards) developments throughout Southeast Asia. Expensive apartments pride themselves in having direct access to a prestigious mall and vice versa. Hotels and offices are common attachments as well. Every mall strives to be the most luxurious as possible to outcompete each other and that coincides with development of other amenities, as well as hiding parking lots underground as much as possible to show off their glitzy facade. ~Jakarta
Since I've been playing Cities Skylines lately, my kneejerk response to suburban problems is now "Robert Moses gone urbanist": as soon as a problem arises, you have an excuse to bulldoze everything in the area around the problem and put in a completely re-envisioned district with more efficient land use, a better transit corridor and protected bike paths. The silver lining of dead malls is that actually, it's possible to do that with the site without displacement. (You'd have to also bulldoze the whole adjacent stroad to get the transit in, though, which might be harder.)
I recently had a realization that some of the largest malls could probably have a transit stop in the basement and sell off or otherwise redevelop the oversized parkinglot. But yes, abandoned malls are ideal places to redevelop because its a massive lot with nobody living on it.
Too bad the real world isn't as simple as the swipe of a mouse in a video game. How many millions did you spend on permits? How long did you have to want for them? How many millions more poured into "hazmat" clean up? (some malls will be old enough to have asbestos in them.)
Amen brother. I'm sitting at a 50k city currently and the widest road i have is a 4 way one way road in industrial complex. All my residential, commercial and downtown areas are two lane trams or roads with bike lane. No traffic issues whatsoever.
I moved to the Philippines a year ago and the inner city malls here are a marvel to behold. Stretching several city blocks and as much as 10 or more floors these places are the heart and soul of major urban areas. These malls are serviced by well-developed inexpensive mass transit systems as well as cheap private cabs tricycles (motorcycles with enclosed side cars and Jeepneys (old, modified WWII jeeps stretched and converted to commuter buses). The malls contain most every American retailer plus many retailers unique to Asia swimming pools amusement rides and even church services are held in many malls.
I was 16 in 1980. No internet, no cell phones, everyone was at the mall on the weekends. The parking lot was full. That same Mall in 2023 is completely different than it was in 1980. The good stores are gone and the parking lot is always empty.
It's not just online shopping. It's the evaporating middle class. High-end malls are doing well. The middle class malls, the ones we all loved as teenagers (if you were born pre-2000), are the ones disappearing. Another factor is they built far too many of them, especially during the 2000s. The retail boom was out of control for the few years before the 2008 recession happened.
All my local malls which are still around have added movie theaters and gyms and there are residential areas and apartments nearby like a 10 minute walk. Some are trying to be a transit hub or at least have a decent number of buses stop by but no light rail. They are still a shell of what they used to be like in the 80's and 90's and not the third place we'd hope for but I'm glad they are trying. I hope they build apartment complexes on the some of the parking lots and maybe add walking areas with gardens and plants and lots of tables and seating with little shops so we could just hang out and buy nothing if we feel that way.
That was very insightful at 9:25 that the suburban lifestyle makes it tempting to just reconstruct the world in your own home - because it's such a pain in the ass to get out into the world if you have to drive everywhere.
And this is one of the reasons Americans want bigger and bigger houses. In dense walkable places with plenty of third places, there are times when you feel that your home is just the place you store your things, because you spend so much time outside of it that only go back to sleep.
@@Nico_M. A big house is a status symbol. But, yes, over time, people tend to fill the space they have. As for the "man cave", we built it out of convenience (it's there, and we can use it as much as we want, whenever we want), and stumble into it's economy (it quickly pays for itself given the cost of a movie ticket, bowling/pool/arcade, night at the bar, ...)
Hmm I wonder why all my University friend, move to this depressing suburb area with big house once we start having children? We used to live in 15min city with bike line and just 12 km from CBD....... I am still living in the same neighborhood. the reason I still live in this area not because its bike-able but because its public transport and I love beach. but if we have second one there is no question we will move to that depressing suburb you hate so much. because we know in reality as long as there is good public transport their live not much worse than us.
I personally love driving. Especially since I have a nice car which I enjoy. I agree that it can be a pain in the ass to get out into the world if you have to drive everywhere but when I lived in the city I thought it was even worse to have to rely on busses and trains all the time. You have to go by their schedule, pay every time you ride them, they are usually crowded and you may have to stand, they still require masks in most cities, etc. In the winter when there is a snowstorm and I'm nice and warm in my car I always feel bad for the people at bus stops standing in the cold all the time. I knowsome urbanists love that lifestyle but it's not for me.
@@jfbeam My husband and I bought a 1,550-square-foot house and have resisted the temptation to move into a larger one. We'd only get MORE junk if we did. Instead, we paid down the principal on this house and had it paid off in 13 years. Is it a little small? Yes. But I'd rather be mortgage-free.
There’s a lot of malls in the US that are very bizarrely placed that have a lot of potential. In my hometown (south of San Francisco), there’s a dying mall that sits right on top of a metro station and is a 5 minute walk from the local passenger heavy rail station. It would be the perfect place to build dense housing alongside limited commercial and civic spaces. Unfortunately, the mall and it’s land is currently expected to be bought by a biotech company which hopes to make it a corporate campus. It’s likely to be primarily focused on research, with paltry levels of residential and commercial areas.
@@bootmii98 I don't understand why they built the BART and Caltrain stations separately. Makes sense to have just made them one station. Transferring would be easier, and the San Bruno Caltrain station is much closer to San Bruno's downtown than the San Bruno BART. At least the Tanforan redevelopment will add a lot of density (commercial, residential, and office)!
@@empirestate8791 that’s the stated objective, but I’m expecting it to become a large office park with commercial around the transit connections and limited dense housing. Having lived here for 20+ years, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen a tech company buy valuable land near transit connections, and still turn it into a soulless hellscape of asphalt and glass.
An American friend and his Scottish wife made the specific choice to _not_ get a pool. Years after they moved into that house, people still wondered "but... you don't have a pool?" "Nope." "But, but, but..." Instead, they'd left their yards open; they were just grass, with some items that could be installed when the weather invited (a high net, a swing set...). Their yard was the suburb's public playground and, as he liked to say, "my children have 173 pools to choose from".
there are 2 of the biggest industries involved, so it's not that unexpected, lots of lobbyism from oil and car companies which pretty much go in tandem, but not for ever though since oil industry probably will largely be replaced by the battery one (with related mineral extractions companies) and other electricity production industries
It's incredible for how retail-oriented our economy and culture is, we absolutely suck at making it efficient, safe or fun. Sometimes the traffic within the nearest power center gets so backed up you're waiting for 20 minutes to get out, not to mention the stores are so far apart and there's no ped infrastructure integrated within the huge space that you'll probably end up driving from store to store, making the one-stop solution a travesty.
If suburbanites understood the costs of maintenance for all the roads and spread out services, I think they would happily invite businesses in to help offset them. As is there is no impetus, as they've pushed all those costs to the city center they were so desperate to be away from.
And the trend of consolidation has left fewer players that can enter vacated space. I.e. when the only stores around are Walmart and Target, there is nothing else to take over the space.
They turned the older mall in my city into a giant office building with a food court for the employees. There are two other malls. One is always busy and will probably never shut down or be effected by the downfall of malls. The other is barely holding on. Years back it even banned kids under 18 from entering without parents or a legal guardian. That actually made me really mad because they had a theater there and I couldn’t go on dates their or see movies with my friends as a teen. And it’s ridiculous because most of the stores in the mall were teen focused. Hot topic. Skate shops. American eagle, gap, sports stores. All of it was for teens and kids except for stuff like dillards, jewelry shops, or perfume shops. The idea of the third place was out the window.
It isn't ridiculous. Don't be mad at them. Be mad at the kids that caused trouble to cause that ban. They didn't do it all willy nilly just to piss you off. The last 2 1/2 generations were taught that the world revolves around you and you can do anything you want. Which, of course, brings a lot of troubling behavior. And ultra lefty policies of "Do whatever you want. No more bail! You will be free to go no matter what you do!" doesn't help either.
Atleast when it comes to the US. Europe and britain isn't as bad in some places. Metrocenter being a slight exception though it has busses and regional rail as alternatives.
The real fallacy leading to the collapse of malls is in thinking that suburbanites actually want an urban experience. If I wanted a city experience, I'd drive to the city and walk around, or just move there. The draw of the suburbs is space, privacy, and limiting the people you have to interact with. If that's not for you, fine... That's why cities still exist. There is plenty of space for people to have different desires in their housing and communities. Btw: hearing your conclusion at the end, sounds like you came to the same conclusion, and it was really refreshing to hear that.
When the first fully enclosed mall was built here in San Antonio in 1960, North Star Mall, it was truly a one-stop mall - grocery store, toy store, bakery, hardware store, etc. However, over time, it has become a series of stores selling the same items (primarily shoes).
The redevelopment of SF's stonestown galleria mall is excellent. It's a car-centric mall that's going to be turned into a mixed-use new urbanist development by constructing new housing and retail on the parking lots. A massive new underground garage is going to be constructed to replace the lost surface parking. The new district will have open space, entertainment, retail, and housing - and the old mall will remain unchanged.
eventually in europe they started plopping them into city centers rather than remote business parks, designed so that theyre accessible both by foot & parking garage & usually with outward facing cafes, ice cream parlors or fast foot joints to lure in hungry pedestrians - and generally they try to make the outside facade fit the other buildings, and the "anchor" is usually a big grocery store, which is probably more robust.
People live in the suburbs because they don't want to live in an urban area. You don't "bring the world into your house" to keep from getting in the car. You do it so that you can enjoy these things in the peace and quiet of your own home. People who want walkable amenities generally want to live in an urban area rather than the suburbs.
In the UK and Ireland, the major anchor tenant for shopping centres (our name for shopping malls) is usually a well-known food retailer. That's to attract families who then buy clothes hardware etc in the other shops while they're at the centre... Makes perfect sense to me. In recent years with the development of retail parks, with big box stores, adjacent to shopping centres there were no food retailers in the retail parks. When German discounters, Lidl and Aldi arrived on our shores they often opened stores in these retail parks. I never really understood why US planning regulations insisted on separating retail from residential in the way that forces people to drive to a mall rather than strolling to the grocery store on the corner of a housing development. In Dublin, in the residential suburb where I live, you're nearly always within walking distance of a grocery shop. Fewer car journeys, fitter people.
As someone who can not drive because of my vision, surburbs are horrible. I have lived in sev states and have found I can be the most independent in an urban setting. I grew up in a rural area and left as quickly as I could because I had to depend upon others to drive me around.
It’s in Reno. That’s in Nevada. It’s a desert. It’s hot. People in hot locations don’t typically hoof it over asphalt parking lots in hot weather. It seems pretty obvious to me as to why the shopping is spread out and why there’s a lot of parking lots around the stores.
Malls should be retrofit as schools. Small store spaces could make good classrooms. Backrooms make decent teacher offices and often have access halls that could be accessible for office hours. They already have robust food courts, administrative offices, and typically a gym. Also they are nicer than the schools I went to
@@karenryder6317 it's reusing a built space and not building a new one, so I'll take the win I guess. The neighborhood is walkable and the weather is remarkably consistent, is it a 55+ community?
Mall design should of been like micro climates. Housing up top, shops below, parking garage attached to "entrance" area nearest highway. Like a mini city!
The key to walkability is density, How do you convince people who don’t want to be packed into dense areas to be packed into denser areas? Most downtowns are walkable, The issue is most Americans don’t desire apartment buildings, rather desire a big house with yard space and being isolated, which causes sprawl resulting in needing a car.
Discouraging me from taking my car downtown is why I don't go downtown. I like the ability to make more choices in less time about where I go and what I do. Unfortunately, that means I no longer am very aware of what is downtown at this point. Being stuck on someone else's timetable was easier when i was younger.
Being on someone else's timetable isn't a problem when that timetable is frequent and reliable. Also, don't pretend that just because you are in a car doesn't mean you aren't stuck on someone else's timetable. Rush hour is nothing but a bunch of people's timetables screwing up everyone else's timetables. At least a reliable transit system that is separated from traffic is a predictable timetable.
@@smileyeagle1021 Man I would never head downtown during rush hour on purpose. :) For a sense of where I am. I'm in Austin and I timed the difference between taking a car and taking a train because one of my friends wanted to travel by train one day. A 14 mile trip took 34 minutes longer by train not including the 48 minutes we waited for a train to arrive to get back (I didn't think to time to first waiting time since we were talking). Since I was there with a friend the extra time didn't seem too bad since there was good conversation. That seemed worthwhile. But I'm way to OCD to sign up for that amount of my life spent waiting. For me there's got to be something better to do with myself. My friend has a much more romantic vision of the train, yet when I asked how much he used it a year, he said only a few times. Sometimes it may be just where you are located. Another example. When I was younger and living in Houston, I blew the engine in my car and had to take the bus to work each day for 9 months. The trip had taken me around 40 minutes each way, but now took 2 hours each way. Plus, I couldn't get groceries on the way home and ended up standing in the rain a lot, which was miserable. Any romantic notions I had were tainted at that point. I've talked to several people who were forced to take mass transit in Texas due to circumstance and hear the same from them.
mall parking lots might also be good for farmers markets, art fairs, and other assorted temporary attractions. an empty parking space doesn't make money
I live in a large southwestern US city that's been putting a lot of effort into breaking away from the built-in car dependency. One super cool thing the city did manage to do in the 80s/90s was put transit hubs super adjacent to malls and bus stops inside of mall parking lots. So you didn't have to walk across a huge parking lot to go shopping or go to work. One of the malls has a dedicated crosswalk with a full bilateral sidewalk to the main entrance. We still heavily used malls as third spaces when I was a teen in the early 2000s, so it was extremely awesome that these areas were designed with a balance between cars and pedestrians in mind. Of course, these malls were built in areas that were already established as urban. Which does make a difference. These two urban malls in the area experienced a smallish drop in popularity when internet shopping first became widespread. But they've rallied quite a bit (with a lot more local businesses renting spaces), even as other older shopping districts, like downtown, have been heavily invested in by the city. I think this has a lot to do with a factor that that urbanites in in more temperate climates tend to overlook. Outdoor thirdspaces & shopping districts and reliance on private vehicles are a lot less realistic and a lot more dangerous in more extreme climates. If Vegas wasn't a major tourism destination, the strip would be vacant for a huge portion of the year. Walking or biking a few blocks in triple digit (F) heat isn't just miserable, it can be deadly. The same is true, to a lesser extent, for very cold climates. Aside from the extreme heat or cold, severe weather is also more likely in these areas. Indoor areas that simulate the outdoor pedestrian-focused areas in more temperate climates are very important spaces for all of us living in less comfortable year round conditions. Especially as climate change continues to accelerate. (Yes, Reno gets a lil hot and a lil cold, but it's definitely not an extreme climate)
A couple of comments on southdale. It's in Edina, and the I is pronounced like eye They currently have built apartments and a hotel on the fringes of the parking lot. It's got a fitness studio and a government service space for things like license plates, etc. The mall of America was built a few miles away, so southdale is heading towards the dying mall status but still has quite a few shoppers The Dayton corporation at one time had Daytona, Mervyn's California, and Target. Daytona was sold to Macy's, Mervyn's is no longer with us, and Target remains. One of their largest revenue streams is from rent in malls. They are based in Minneapolis, MN.
In the Philippines, malls are like mini cities. There's retail stores, cinemas, restaurants, recreational spots, dept stores, grocery stores, and so much more, you can even hold concerts and school events here. If it's big enough there are open spots you'd consider parks. Malls are THE third place in the country. Though some of their layouts can get a little funky, it is still very enjoyable to go to a mall here. And the thing is with parking their, usually built within a certain section of the building and even underground and within those parking areas, right beside them are transportation terminals for commuters. Sometimes a whole light rail train station would be connected. This wasn't really to brag, I'm not even sure if I could call it that, but I'm just surprised at how different malls are in the rest of the world.
Thank you for being an urbanist channel that finally points out that malls aren't the issue, but the American implementation of them are. Malls fare better in Asia where they're actually in the city, connected to transit and provide more conveniences than just shopping-often connected to services and even living spaces.
I wonder if any developers of suburbs (so many new ones here in central FL) will be willing to experiment with a new type of housing plan that will include a mix of grocery stores, pharmacies, retail stores, office buildings and restaurants. If it proved popular enough, more developers would follow suit. But nobody seems willing to be first.
Empty anchor stores aren’t closed indefinitely as long as there is Spirit Halloween. I’d like to see an indoor mall designed like a downtown area with trees, little “outdoor” patios to eat on, and a little train then “cars” to play in. Kind of like they used to have in Las Vegas.
The thing I don’t understand is that apartments or a neighborhood attached to a mall would actually guarantee a continuous income stream for all the businesses especially if the real estate company was the land lord of the apartment complex. I guess this is why more apartments are doing this now.
Part of the mall vacancy problem is they are not an ideal place for a small business, even something like a booth can be incredibly expensive. I was part of a company trying to open a 4x6 foot booth in a local mall, although you have to pay for a 10x10 foot space centered on the booth. The requirements were the booth had to be of their design, we needed to be insured for $3 million, the fees were $6000 + 5% taxes + 5% "promo" per month (a fee that they never explained in any detail), signage had to be done through them for $250 (a plastic screen with the business name on it we could have had done for $50), and we would have to hire a professional merchandiser (yes, our company was not allowed to merchandise our own products). Needless to say the deal fell through, as we would not even be allowed to use display cases or shelves and instead had to lay the product on the table meaning very little of the product range could be showed off. With all these costs, is it any wonder that businesses are preferring online retail? The company in question dissolved as our suppliers were interested in a physical store front and already had an online presence, so the whole project was centered on these small booths expanding their market presence. Notes, prices are in Canadian dollars.
Another note, empty stores are actually good for the mall and intentional. The mall is after all a property and the property value is tied to the rent that they charge, with this mall in particular being $60 per square foot (and why a previous company I worked for mandated $300 per square foot of merchandise within their store). It's good to have empty stores, because the alternative is lowering the rent to something more affordable, but lower rent also means the properties value reduces. Malls are an investment and like any other investment property they must show a continual growth or at the very least stability of their property value to keep attracting investors. This also leads to interesting arrangements where the anchor store I worked for was required by their lease to also maintain the roof of their section of the building. Unsurprisingly they served their investors by letting it fall into disrepair.
It's funny that one of the self-defined world's freest societies have such restrictive zoning laws. -Hey, how are you doing? -Hey, fine, and you? -Fine, fine. I was planning to eat a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. With a diet coke, of course. -Nice, you do you. -And tomorrow I'll take my wife to a monster truck show. -Great! Those things are awesome! -And we're planning on expanding our home, we want a few new rooms and we're thinking on building another floor above us. -What?! Are you crazy?! What kind of maniac would want that?!
Don't forget that suburban homeowners have a say in where they spend money. Make the shopping area less car friendly and they'll shop somewhere else, or buy things online.
the funny part with all the footage in your video is you cannot says where there came from.because you can find they exact setup almost everywhere in canada or us suburb
As far as detached homes, they were generally on smaller lots on a grid of streets and didn't have a driveway or a garage, had sidewalks in the front, and were within walking distance of shops and restaurants. Of course, there were also row houses, townhomes, and apartments as well.
Not necessarily always super close within walking distance, but yeah, on smaller, square, lots in a blocking grid. I would give you a proper link, but UA-cam nowadays blocks all of those. Like, for example, in my hometown, the older housing of it is a stretch of extensively tree-covered, smaller town houses between downtown and the foothills. Following message will have image. For historical reference, that city, Boise, and its metropolitan developed around rail up into the early 1920's but then, as cars became more prevalent, tram services became discontinued and in some cases the lines were simply paved over.
Think suburbs also encourage more online shopping and delivery as well. That also ends up killing off many smaller buisnesses that require people walking past to notice. My towns has it's slap bang in the middle and it ended up replacing a high street. Now it's atleast half empty despite having all the local bus lines, ability to walk to it and plenty of parking with 2 surface, 1 semi underground and a parking garage. 1 of the surface lots becomes a market on thursdays.
13:51 We designed our cities such that children need to run for their lives in the same spots every day. What a horrendous, negligent, wasteland. How can anyone be okay with this.
Why they do not make underground parking or roof parking to those malls? Underground parking allows more access points inside of the mall and it is also good on bad weather. Then there could be residential areas closer to malls without those massive parking lots around it? It is done like that over here in North Europe. Malls are thriving over here and they are building more malls. The city centers and downtowns are dying. Also many malls over here have many more things than just shops. For example spa, hotels, library, movie theater and all kinds of activities so they actually work nicely as a third space. And of course they are nicely accessible with public transport(train, tram, metro and bus for example), bicycles and on foot also from the very near residential buildings. I know at least four malls in my area where you can get in straight from a local commuter train stop and some others with direct metro access.
Our mall is virtually impossible for anyone to access on foot. When they built it, it was placed at the intersection of two major highways & they forced out the vast majority of the people whose houses used to be onside the same block the mall is in, & it's backed up to a river/ swamp that we definitely don't want drained. (Actually had a whole thing about that, recently. They were planning to fill in a big part of the swamp immediately behind the mall to build a hospital. Thankfully, local environmentalists shut that down.) Anyway, hard to get to, most of the people who live adjacent to it would have to cross a highway to get in, it gets so busy that it even deters some drivers who don't trust themselves from entering that entire area, most of everything to do besides the shopping was phased out by the last recession &, when they do do something to gather a crowd it seems like it's 99% kid centric, hoping to drag the whole family down there. It's surrounded by tons of other strip malls & single building businesses for quite a ways around, but it's difficult for some to feel brave enough to just wander around & navigate it all on foot. There's a frigging church, a hotel & a DMV built into the thing, now & a movie theatre, a minor league baseball field, another hotel & an expo center are all also in the general surrounding complex & there's at least one of every single kind of store you can imagine across the span of it. I guess it attracts enough people to get by, no one *likes* going there, anymore. When I was a kid, there used to be an arcade, a three decker carousel & sitting areas with wishing well fountains. All of that is gone. Up until the recession, there was Borders books- a book store with a coffee shop built into it, so you could sit down, get something to eat & enjoy the book you just bought. The actual mall itself is about three major stores & the hotel all smashed together &, I swear, 80% of the small stores in between just sell designer clothes.
Do you really not realize that is WHY the mall was built there? flood plains are not suitable for residential areas. A big mall with a big parking lot gives flood waters LOTS of room to dissipate before reaching homes. Malls can be secured and "sealed" much better than homes and no one dies if one gets flooded.
I'm a personal transportation supremacist. You'll never convince me that separating myself from my car will grant me greater individual freedom, mobility, or personal benefit than having it, and public transportation can get bent.
Yeah, this video could probably be described as “How evil cars and despicable single family home suburbs destroyed America!” The practicality of personal ICE transport and the quality of life issues a SFH affords is ignored. Tiresome comparisons of American cities to European cities… Americans think a hundred years is a long time, Europeans think 100 miles is a long way…
They know you won't buy as much if you have to carry it home on foot or on a bus. Maybe if there was a delivery service at the mall where you could leave your purchases and they would be brought to you the next day, people might be more inclined to go there without their own vehicle.
This is likely going to be something that will catch on. I will not buy a lot of new things unless I get my hands on it. A lot of stores can be more show-rooms where you use it to browse and scan the QR codes onto your phone and the item will be shipped to you. It will save store space and give people a chance to continue their day without worrying about carrying stuff around. Imagine being able to go grocery shopping without needing to go home immediately afterwards. Instacart style services will always exist but this would offer an alternative while also being convenient in a different way.
That shopping centre you got an ad for is really shocking to me, my ideal of a shopping centre is thst you drive up (or take other public transit/walk) and park in one place off to the side, then you WALK around the centre and go to all the shops you want, then head home. It’s kinda horrifying to be honest. That shopping centre looks like you need to drive in, park up outside one shop, buy your stuff, then drive to the front of a different shop and park up there to buy stuff. That just blows my mind, I can’t imagine someone actually designing a shopping centre like that, usually the parking is in one or two areas with a few more frequent transit stops.
From the netherlands, the recipe for a good mall seems to be: at a junction of 2 modes of mass transport (bus, tram, metro, train), with easy bike access, plenty underground parking, and plenty to do other than dining and shopping. You should never have to question if something you're looking for is sold at a mall unless it is extremely niche.
It's Ee-Dine-Uh not Ee-deeen-uh. Also, ironically, Southdale is accessible by bus. Direct to the door. As are the other "dales" around Minneapolis & Saint Paul. And even the Mall of America is accessible on the LRT or bus.
Back when I was carless and healthier, I used to take the bus all the way across town to the mall. There were closer malls, but they all involved transfers and a lot of sitting around waiting for a connection or walking a mile or more to the other crosstown route. Seems the bus riding clientele were not the best. That mall became a bit hostile to bus riders, and even went as far as moving the bus stops way out to the edge of the lot. I even had some rentacop harass me for wearing a backpack... something you need on the bus to carry stuff..
When they built Mall of America, my husband asked me, "Since all the other malls are -dales, will this one be 'Airdale' because it's near the airport?"
The video opens with complaints about tiny store islands inside a vast ocean of parking lots. Well, I am an urban resident who is on foot most of the time - but recently I was in a car in a rare trip to the suburbs and we stopped by the famous Woodbury Common mall in Rockland County, NY. We just wanted to get something to eat - but to our great surprise, the amount of parking was tiny and all used up. We figured that there must have been some adjacent lots that we couldn't see, so we drove around looking for it, couldn't find any - and finally just left. I'll never return after that experience. So there you go.
Unfortunately, a lot of "urbanists" do not understand that accessibility is one of the most important things about commerce. Developers would not use up such huge sections of their land for parking if they didn't think it would be necessary to attract customers.
5:40 This is why I love public libraries. There's no expectation of spending money; you can look through the aisles, read, watch, listen, browse the net, without any obligations whatsoever. They feel like a true third place.
I’m from the Czech Republic and my parents recently moved back there after my dad retired. There are a total of two malls that I know of that are near where my parents live (near is a strong word) however this mall has a slew of different stores including a butcher shop, grocery store, household goods store, vehicle store for maintenenance etc. it was really different
Vancouver has gotten good at making walls pedestrian friendly.... 1. Build good transit to the mall (Rail or BRT/express buses) 2. Redevelop all surface parking into dense housing & extra commercial space (Vancouver builds too tall now IMO, but better than before) 3. Done. You can keep the existing mall building or renovate/rebuild. This is how so many Vancouver suburbs did for their smaller 'downtowns' and 'town centers'. EDIT: Examples or redeveloped malls near Vancouver: Brentwood Town Center, Lougheed Town Center, Richmond Center (in progress), Oakridge (in progress).... There are other malls that were built from ground up with transit/walkability features (Metrotown, Aberdeen), or at least have good transit access and dense development across the street (Coquitlam Center)... Probably more examples locally, and definitely in Asia.
it's interesting to note that many malls in AMERICA were built (and financed) by big stores that had their own real estate companies. They were designed to find, purchase, and acquire land for where they could build new stores. SEARS had one of the largest real estate portfolios for exactly that reason, and developed entire malls centered around their stores. In your article, you mentioned that DAYTONS was the developer for SOUTHDALE. It too, wanted a new location. MARSHALL FIELDS also did this with many CHICAGO and MILWAUKEE locations, with their development becoming places where there anchor stores existed. Not only did they get new store locations, but they made money on the mall development and getting rent from the competition.
I honestly didn't think there were malls anymore. I'm in north east Ohio where we're famous for our abandoned malls. In my brain I went "was this made in 2004?" LOL. When I was a kid malls were definitely a 3rd place for me and my friend group though.
Important background on that first Mall, Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota in the US. You need to understand that the Dayton Development Corporation - which stripped out all the non-shopping elements of Gruen’s plan - is a subsidiary of Dayton Department Stores (now known as Target). So of course Daytons Department Stores, which was paying to build the Mall, was never going to prioritize anything other than shopping. Dayton’s was a great department store, and still is great in its current Target incarnation. Nothing evil here, just a company looking to maximize over the long run its return on investment. Growing up in the early ‘60s two suburbs over from Southdale, we went there as a family often. You can’t explain now how magical it felt as a kid to go there. New, clean, safe consumerism - it was the future ;) But even as a small child I never understood Southdale’s central courtyard, the Mall’s supposed “community center”. It was a bizarre uninviting mishmash that as I recall we nor anyone else ever went into. I can only agree with Frank Lloyd Wright on that one! And just because it needs to be said, Edina is pronounced E-die-nah. ;)
In northern Vigina in the Dullus/Sterling/Loudin area, there are few outdoor mall/coomunities of upscale shops on a grid of a couple of blocks, around that are parks and luxury multi-floor (not quite high rise) condominiums. The Dullus Town Center is one but the one I am thinking about is smaller and more "nuclear". I think there are office buildings and a school too. I forget the name of it but I hope it catches on. I am 59 and live miles from the real necessities - grocery, pharmacy, doctor, general mechandice, hardware store, and entertainment. I am thinking of retiring to a place like that, not a senior community, but a place of all ages within a couple of walking blocks with everything you need.
Fun watch! My first job was at the Gottschaks anchor store at Park Lane over a decade ago, and when I was working the mall portion had already closed…it took them forever to redevelop the area! You may want to check out the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, WA. It has always been a fairly busy mall but over the last few years it has been surrounded by apartments, some right up against the mall. Of course, there’s still tons of parking space but I feel like they’re slowly chipping away at it. They are also expanding the rapid transit from Seattle to reach this mall which will mean living there would give you access to all the mall, Seattle’s downtown and university districts, and the Airport…now that’s the dream! The one thing the area appears to be missing is a real grocery store other than a Target and Costco, though most could probably make do with that and there’s still plenty of space for a Sprouts or whatever. My husband and I have really considered moving to that area, getting rid of the cars would be great and being able to walk to Target or the movies would be my dream, but the rent is still a little rich for us
I was never in better health than when I lived in NYC: constantly walking everywhere, carrying my groceries many blocks while walking, etc... great natural exercise. Sprawled-out car couture is terrible for our minds and our health.
I'm from Reno. If you don't have a car, it's like not having legs, especially in the suburbs. Everything you said you didn't like is dialed up, and the whole country side lights on fire a few times a summer.
The problem isn't cars, it's big corporate chains and big box stores. Many of us long for the days of independent diners, hot dog stands, and bowling alleys. Large googie-style neon signs! Pure Americana!
Interestingly, on the West Coast, I can't think of a single store in a downtown area that I would actually want to shop at for any sort of regular shopping. Here in SF there IS a Target downtown, but it's small, cramped, and short on the stuff I would want to buy at a normal sized Target, making it more of a hassle to get to than anything else, especially because there's only expensive paid parking nearby, making any trip a purely public-transit affair, heavily limiting the amount and kind of goods I think about buying there, and I am already willing to carry far more than most people would on public transit (between 80 and 100 pounds of groceries, which is probably well in excess of what most people consider practical).
It really strikes me that we've rarely in America thought to use grocery stores, or chains like Walmart that need huge amounts of space anyway (and the larger ones have grocery sections) as anchor stores! The only food available at the mall beyond the food court tends to be boutique shops that have a very limited selection. Covering a wider range of basic needs with a mall would certainly help to prevent decline. I'm not sure if it's still there post pandemic, but a localish mall to me tried out the concept of renting the first floor of an anchor store space to an indoor flea market. It was still developing as of 2019 but I haven't been back there since. I think that's a great idea honestly, thrifting is great for people of varied budgets and gives independent people a space outside their home to sell personal items without having to rent a store front. And for the company owning the thrift, as long as business is going well, they do not need to worry about some folks ending their booths, as others will take their place - rather than an entire storefront closing up shop when a person is not able or does not want to continue selling. The best benefit for a community is offering a place to buy various used goods from others in the community rather than buying/selling online, especially as sites like eBay charge hefty participation fees these days. In the same vein, those places would be a good location to hold famers markets, craft fairs, other community events that need a decent sized footprint and may benefit from being able to continue on even in poor weather. I recall seeing banks and at least chain style medical/dental/eye care at indoor malls years ago, though I'm not sure if any of those are still around.
If you think you have a better idea then try it and see if it catches on. If the only way to make your idea work is to outlaw other options then you have a bad idea
The internet is killing malls. If the only thing they provide is a bunch of random shops, online shopping is just far superior. They should embrace being third places, because otherwise I am not going there at all.
Every parcel of land has a given demand. Developers build according to that demand to maximize profits. Building tall is more expensive, but if the demand is there, and there is profit to be made, it will be built. Higher demand areas tend to have taller buildings. Restrictive Euclidean Zoning, parking requirements + car centric urban planning interfere with this free market mechanism. Developers would likely prefer to build more space efficient malls - taller, less parking, smaller stalls, lots of kiosks, near other tall buildings, conveniently located to transit stations, etc. But it’s illegal or economically impractical because they need to build so much parking. It’s difficult to build a mall over 2 floors, and not surrounded by a sea of surface parking. The parking area costs money to build and maintain and that cost must be shared by store tenants. Because parking requirements effectively restrict the amount of mall space. Individual stores have much higher rents to pay than otherwise. Only big retail chains can afford such rents and that’s what you see in the US. This is why it’s almost all chain restaurants, chain stores, chain hotels. Mom and Pops don’t stand a fighting chance.
Best way to repurpose dead mall property would be to bulldoze it all up and remediate the soil, after back filling. Plant grass and trees on it for either pasture or plant vegetable or grain crops on it. There. It's fixed.
My city heavily relies on the tax revenue generated from its dying mall area. If we turn it into a pasture or prairie land, the city would need to increase taxes everywhere else or cut services to stay afloat. Good luck getting a signoff on that!
@@mangos2888 My point was that most urbanized land would be put to better use as a cornfield or cow pasture. As I have commented on another page, I much prefer rural / small town living to any urban environment. Once a place gets above about 10000 in population, it's simply unlivable.
pedestrians don't buy anything because they have no way to transport it home with them anyway. plus as a pedestrian after shop 1, even buying tiny stuff, you got bags of shop 1 which you can't take into shop 2, which, you ditch in your car and then go into shop 2, oh yeah. that car which you don't have with you or which is miles away. :P
Southridge Mall on the Southside of Des Moines, IA has been essentially dead for a very long time. It was somewhat recently reoccupied by DMACC (Des Moines Area Community College). They've taken over about half of the mall and turned it into classrooms. And it's not unreasonable to think that they may end up taking over the entire mall at some point. Unfortunately, there's a limit to what classes DMACC offers at Southridge and students often have to end up traveling to other campuses at some point in pursuit of a degree. The old food court has long been demolished. And much of the mall has a lot of problems with leaks, mold, mildew, and a lack of working air conditioning. My friends used to visit Southridge's theater when my friend was in high school (before we met) and said the theater was very very cheap, but you had to put up with the smell of mold, mildew, and urine and that the theater itself wasn't air conditioned - that was in the early 2000s and before DMACC moved in.
So as a suburbanite type person, I want to mention that my 3rd space is pretty much anywhere with my extended family. I don't really have a need for a public town square because I don't really have a need to interact with a bunch of strangers outside of the internet. I have lots of different family members living in close proximity to visit and spend time with. It's true that I'm usually only outside for exercise or for yard work, but it's far from dead here. There are kids walking to and from school a lot and neighbors walking their dogs, exercising, or also doing yard work. When I walk my own dog over by the park there's usually like 20+ people at either of the two parks within a 10 minute walk from my home. I honestly hate going into urban areas. I don't feel nearly as safe there as I do either in nature or in the suburban neighborhoods. The only time I've been the victim of a crime was in Paris. I think most people who push for a bigger emphasis on urban development are just generally less family centric. It's fine to put less emphasis on your family as a matter of personal choice, but I also think those of us who want to have 30+ family members over for a Saturday Barbeque should have a place to do that as well. You can make an argument that it's not fair for us family types to take up so much space I suppose.... but if the space is available, then the only real issue with suburban single-family home life is the dependency on transportation. However, as more things become available online and as more people are able to work from home, then the transportation issues decrease as well. Regardless of whether I buy something or not, I'm going to see a delivery truck or two driving around the neighborhood every day. I only get gas about every 6 weeks, so I don't really feel like this lifestyle is inherently bad for the environment versus an urban lifestyle. I lived in Europe a long time, and I'm not fully against everything over there. I did enjoy walking around city centers in smaller towns, but I also really felt restricted and confined when I was home. I value my personal liberty and choice over what I do at home very highly, and you just didn't have nearly the amount of freedom over there as you do here... Dumb example, but I couldn't even mow my lawn on a Sunday or a Holiday because someone would have called the cops on me for disturbing the peace.
Malls are a caricature of the arcades of old Europe. You can still visit them in some cities. There are even some outside Europe, such as the queen Victoria building in Sydney.
The real and only reason why malls are dying off is the internet. Why travel when you can have anything you order delivered straight to your door cutting out the middle man of the mall. It saves on space, energy, travel, cost, and everything. When people are able to directly buy the products from the factory that they are made in then they no longer need a giant parking lot which has super stores in.
I live in reno. And Miss park lane mall had all the stores I liked and the theater at the end. Met up with my friends, played games at the game store, had something to eat, or saw a movie. I miss that mall a lot.
I live four blocks away from a mall that’s pretty small. It’s actually an open space with all the stores surrounding it, but anyway, it’s located also where the heavy rail, bus lane and pretty soon, a light rail 🚈 . Oh happy day. That won’t cause gentrification. Oh wait… 😑
If I had to walk up and down the street to get to the stores where I wanted to buy things, I'd stay home and have everything delivered. The best thing about shopping centers is that they're compact; you park near your target, walk inside, make your purchase, and leave, all with a minimum of human interaction.
This video made me realize why I hate shopping so much. I avoid ALL shopping until I have no other choice. Out of cat food, or out of personal food. I go not even 1 time a year for clothes or others. This is because it feels like a job having to get into my car, go to a massive lot and find a spot, and walk 3 min to 1 store that I need 2 things from. Then repeat at the next store. I hate it. If I could walk down the street and find everything I need, I’d shop way more frequently.
We don't recreate spaces in our homes like home theaters because we don't want to walk. We do it because movie theaters are expensive, dirty, and lack a level of comfort that home provides. At home, I can pause the movie, change the volume, get my own snacks, or rewind if I missed something. And it costs less!
It's nice to see a different perspective on malls as civic spaces. In the Philippines and in many Southeast Asian countries, malls are not dying, they're thriving. They are a one-stop shop. They have clothing stores, hardware, grocery, pharmacy, churches, exhibition centers, cinemas, restaurants, gardens, banks, office spaces, and more. In contrast to American Malls, Southeast Asian malls also double as transit hubs. Malls here do serve as third places, because of lack of open space, and the want to escape the heat of the tropics. And you can spend the whole day without buying anything inside the malls here.
Malls in the US were doing okay until the late 1990s. E-Commerce really killed them. Also, there were just *way* too many malls built in the 80s and 90s (the US has an insane amount of retail space per capita compared to any other country). They were built on tax credits and started poaching each other's business. A new mall would open and stores and customers would move to that one, leaving a blighted mall behind. Mall owners also became more aware of how expensive they were to maintain compared to traditional shopping centers. The rise of free-standing "big box" stores like Walmart, Target, Costco, Sam's Club, etc. really cut into their business as well. Some malls are doing fine, others are just getting by, and many are failing, being torn down and redeveloped into outdoor "lifestyle centers" or into new housing developments.
Malls in the US will often fight against having a transit stop there (at least they used to) because they think it will bring an "undesirable element" to the mall. With some exceptions, they are meant to be accessed by people in cars, period.
@Zaydan Alfariz there's a shift in what people do in malls, especially during and after the pandemic. The mall nearest me replaced some of its cinemas to more restaurant spaces. Some stores have closed and are yet to be replaced, but business is picking up after loosened restrictions.
E-commerce does have its merits, but we cannot deny that malls here in SE Asia provide a different purpose to people compared to its American counterparts, thus making it more resilient to changing times.
@Zaydan Alfariz Malls that are "dying" in Jakarta are those that generally don't offer other experience than shopping tho, so it's still more or less the same as the reason why malls in the US are dying. But if you've been to an American mall, the difference to SEA mall is about the difference between heavens and earth lol. Malls in the US are generally suburban with huge parking lots, very spread out (like, only one or two storeys but wide enough that you have to visit different parts by car), and offer very little entertainment than shopping.
Also dense residential area around (or even on top of) malls are very common in SEA, ensuring that the malls will always have regular customers. One in my city is surrounded by dozens of public housing buildings.
Yea, like every "city" in the Ph has at least one mall, and of course there is MOA.
US malls don't have grocery shops? That's freaking dumb. Never seen a mall without at least one grocery shop in any other country I've been to.
It’s very rare in the USA to have a grocery store. I even count Target and Walmarts as grocery stores if they’re in a mall. There are a couple wegmans in malls too. Some have Costco’s included as well
@@MrJamieBattle That's sad. IMO the strongest selling point of shopping centers is that they can concentrate multiple categories of shops in one easily available spot, so it's absurd to hear that they regularly lack the most essential shop there is.
When I visit one of the shopping centres near my home (all accessible by public transport and on foot, naturally), we usually end the trip with a stop at one of the supermarkets there so I don't have to spend time going somewhere else afterwards.
Usually, they don't. I don't think I've ever seen a grocery store in a US mall. They're mostly dominated (I'd say 90%) by clothing/apparel stores with some "specialty stores" that sell things like electronics, kitchenware, gifts, and novelties, with a few restaurants and snack places.
@@danielkelly2210 of course, in the countries I've been to it's also the norm that the center is dominated by clothing shops and the occasional hardware, interior or electronics shop, but supermarkets are basically compulsory. My nearest shopping center right now has two supermarkets, and yet another two across the (one-lane w/ bike path) street next to it. :D
Whoever plans this stuff in the US has a lot to learn if they want to make people happy to be there.
@@skitlus335 I won't pretend to know why this isn't the case in the US, but it just isn't. Though I have a few ideas... one is Americans have been conditioned to buy huge amounts of groceries at once. The typical US grocery store is located in a strip mall or power center. Loading all those groceries is easier if you can just drive right up to the front or wheel your cart out to your car, something you can't do in an enclosed mall.
5:00 I can't believe someone would be genuinely surprised by how healthy they could be (at any age) after walking every day. It's so sad how our infrastructure and health are physically intertwined for the worse in this country
I don't think the petrol and pharmaceutical industries are sad about this intentional design.
If you want to walk then do it. But blaming design of store for people lack of exercise is stupid. Meanwhile most people do not live within walking distance to most store unless they live in a city. Or is there suppose to have store every block so people can walk to them.
Meanwhile if you have problems with the design go complain to the city council who approve this stuff. Oh yea people never show up for that or even show up to vote for the people who make the choices that effect them the most. Which is your city, country and state elected officials and not the one in Washington DC. If American want to complain maybe they should understand the system and how it works. It is like people whining about corporations and yet those are business you could be a part owner of just by buying the stock and be part of the profits or loses.
@@JAM661 It's extremely hard to unfuck 70 years of shitty city design. In a properly designed society you do not have to own a personal means of transportation to survive. Most people don't live in walking distance to a store because it's illegal to build anything other than single family housing in most areas and the stores don't coexist alongside housing. If you had a community design that allows walking as a means of transport people would walk. If your life is like the majority of Americans the most walking done in a week is to and from a car.
Again this was decided as car sales took off decades ago and the infrastructure is already in place. Similar to internet, since companies own cable lines they can have monopolies and jack prices. Ideally the lines would be government owned just like electricity and competition would actually exist.
Sure if thigs were just getting started a vote would do something. That's why so many young people are frustrated because they have to deal with the ignorance of the past without any means to make a meaningful difference within their own lives. Just because you have a vote or have a dollar to spend doesn't mean that one person will make an impact. It takes a majority and a fair system which we don't currently have.
It's a bit ironic how these elderly people drive to a mall to have a walk. I just realize how losing one's licence must be hell for the average elderly American ! . My father had to give uo his licence age 82, because he couldn't pass the tests anymore . Luckily he can bike , walk and take public transport. Otherwise he would be stuck .Or maybe the U.S is more lenient about testing old drivers ?
@@JAM661couldn't agree more
As a kid, I've always loved the idea of living in a mall, and so do many others. Malls have lots of potential, developers just don't like taking risks. If you actually fleshed out Gruen's idea, you'd have an indoor downtown with residential spaces, shops, medical facilities, etc. These large concrete shells exist everywhere. What if we kept the storefronts and turned the rest of the empty big boxes into housing? Then expand by eating away at the massive parking lots. Provide a transit link directly to downtown. Now, you've built an indoor car-independent suburb. Perfect for a place like Tucson with a hot climate. But we should flesh out Victor Gruen's idea, the world deserves to see at least one example of what could have been.
Same i wanted to live in a mall to like the stores at the second floor could be apartments. also some malls in asia have train systems in them bc they are really big
😮 I never thought of it like that! It sounds like a futuristic city and it's sad that the decisions made in the 1950s took that future away from us. The developers knew what they were doing when they shutdown Victor's idea. I agree lets bring it on
I believe that's called an "arcology" where people live in a single ginormous monolithic building that contains apartments, retail shops, restaurants, bars, schools, hospital, recreational facilities with a pool and playground, a small sports complex with bowling and tennis and volleyball, corporate offices, professional services, etc. Sure, you're still gonna want to leave and travel to visit friends and relatives or just go shopping somewhere else once in a while, so you're still gonna need to own a car (and there's nothing wrong with that -- it's called freedom and convenience created by technological progress)
If done right, it sounds ideal.
But if done wrong, it could become a authoritarian communist slum.
His original vision was actually more akin to the life style center, but he was never able to make it correctly. He honestly should’ve work with Disney to design the mall as he had the same ultimate vision as Walt.
That’s an interesting idea. You could turn an empty department store into housing by putting up new walls in it. No pointless demolition and it pays respect to the mall.
Malls have become a desolate wasteland and the parking lots are 2/3 empty. What a terrible waste of space.
The parking lots are 2/3rds empty on Black Friday.
way more than 2/3 empty. parking lots are designed for what used to be maximum capacity on black friday but these days there's less in person shoppers even on black friday.
They weren't so empty when they were built. Today, they've been replaced by the internet, and cheaper free standing locations. I agree they should've been knocked down and rezoned more than a decade ago, but the investment groups that own them would rather leave them rotting than spend any money on them. (and no one is going to pay what they think they used to be worth, because the building sitting on it is beyond worthless -- a great deal of money will be required to remove it.)
I say tear them down and build a park.
How about small bikable shopping distinct?
Malls had a fatal flaw. The rent is only affordable for big corporations. The average person can't open up a business there. The suburban sprawl is just built into the design that was already there.
Yeah, years ago a friend of mine wanted to open a kiosk at a mall. But it never happened cause it turned out rent would've been $10,000/month! I'm not even talking about a store. This is just one of those little kiosks in the walkway between the stores.
Wonder how these kiosks could do this. Never see anybody really buy anything from them...but yet they are still there.
It depends. When a mall starts to lose its anchor stores, the rent on smaller units can drop significantly. Our local mall now has four spaces rented to a non-chain furniture store, plus boutique-type non-chain stores like a candy store, costume jewelry store, wig store, and boot store. That's one of the signs that a mall is in trouble, in fact--lots of mom-and-pop stores replacing national chains. (We lost our Sears three years ago and our Forever 21 shortly thereafter.)
@@Gail1Marie our mall starting losing big box stores then whole sections were shut down. We list bigger box anchor stores ..now it's closed and being torn down.
Yes! You're so right! Also, if for some reason a store has to open a little late because the key-holder didn't make it there on time (car wreck, blizzard, ect.), they are fined, very heavily I might add. If a store decides to not open on a Sunday for instance, they pay a hefty fine each week for that. Also in the contract between the store and the Mall, every 5-10 years a store must do a complete remodel/face-lift to bring it up to the latest trends in design! ... which can be a financial disaster to a mom & pop store.
I don't think malls are 100% bad. I like the fact that they're walkable and being indoors in a climate controlled environment is great if it's really cold or really hot outside. I also quite like the fact that some of them have play areas for kids, food courts, fountains, trees etc. They're especially good when they're in a city centre and have good transit access, plus entertainment options like cinemas nearby. What I dislike is when they're on the edge of town and your only way to get there is by car and the huge car parks surrounding them (making them look ugly on the outside). I also dislike the privately owned nature of them, with private security guards walking around making sure you're not misbehaving. It would be great to have a covered shopping area in a downtown with all of that stuff, but that's publicly owned, where citizens have the same rights as on a public street. Places like this do exist in Europe and the UK, but not many of them are truly publicly owned unfortunately.
I've heard malls are a good place to play Pokemon Go. In winter, I drive around to play. Being able to walk around a mall would be nice. No malls near enough to me, though.
Excellent point! My college town had a mall anchoring the downtown. You could park at the mall, walk through and shop at the mall, and popped out the back onto Main Street and do more shopping.
@@docvideo93 ... sounds like the one in Urbana IL, there was also a large hotel w/a castle theme. The restaurant opened onto the mall, and could be used by all. Not sure it still exists, last time I was there around 2000-2005, it was dying then.😥
Oxford's Covered Market comes to mind. Or NYC's Chelsea Market. Or London's Spitalfields Market.
All stores are privately owned. Every single store you have ever entered is privately owned, can have security guards (many do) and can toss you out for literally any reason they want. This belief that stores have to be open for everyone is some weird brain gymnastics certain demographics have began thinking...which is why so many stores are shutting down now. Thieves and those who want to defame and damage at random need to be kept out of stores. Those stores on the public street can toss you out just as quickly as well.
The security guards making sure you aren't misbehaving, are doing what police should be doing everywhere else. In small towns you see police walking the main areas just like a security guard walks in a mall. To stop people from misbehaving. If security/police are visible and seen being active it keeps miscreants from doing things and they move on to easier targets.
Why do you hate the privately owned nature of them? You have never had to work for, or work with the government have you? Private industry does in a day what takes the government a week or two. This is not an exaggeration. If we privatized more of what our government controls in a vice grip, things would happen faster while being both safer and more efficient/user friendly.
I've seen my local mall get rid of the "hangout " aspect. They stopped the mall walkers, teens aka mall rats . And the movie theater, arcade.. guess what? They lost all the regular customers they had... people want more then the gap and Macy's.. malls are committing retailing suicide
They even got rid of things like the fountains where people used to gather and socialize while their spouse or parents shopped. Now the only seating is in the food court. Even the food court seating is just for eating, not socializing.
When light rail transit was built from Minneapolis to Bloomington in 2004 or so, Mall of America was adamantly against having a train station next to the Mall. They relented when 1) they saw how many people were crossing the street to enter from the mall from the train station, and 2) they finally realized that most of their customers were coming from south Minneapolis, Richfield, and Bloomington, because they could not compete with malls deeper in suburbia. Ten years later, the line was extended to provide easy access to the mall. Now thanks to a 2019 renovation, the train stops under the mall, and it is so easy to get to the mall, many people take the train from MSP airport to the Mall when they have a long layover. There's a real lesson in the potential for malls to benefit from rail transit.
I like the Minneapolis light rail system, and wouldn't go to a Twins game any other way (I park at Ft. Snelling). But when the light rail was connected from downtown to MOA, crime at MOA increased (to include shootings and even murders). I don't know of an easy answer to the problem, but if people don't feel a space is safe, they won't go there.
@@Gail1Marie - That's a bit like blaming the divorce rate on the introduction of microwave ovens into American homes. It's been scientifically proven that as soon as people started using microwaves in American homes in the 1970s, more married couples started getting divorced. You can't argue with the statistics!
@@pacificostudios So what's your explanation for the increase in shootings at MOA? I can't remember a single one before the light rail was connected. Why did MOA have to institute rules requiring teens to have adult chaperones, and limit the number of teens who can congregate together? If you don't have access to a car, how do you think you got to MOA?
@@Gail1Marie Ask someone that cares about your opinions.
@@Gail1Marie I think that's more correlation than causation. Since there are more people in a given place due to easier access via the light rail, there's simply more people that could commit crime. It would be more interesting if the crime rate per visitor increased with the access to light rail. Shootings, meanwhile, seem like a mostly american thing that is drawn to any place with a large concentration of people, like a successful mall, a school, or a nightclub.
As far as I'm aware, the malls in my country don't have the same crime and violence issue as in the U.S. Maybe because all the entrances have guards posted to search for banned items, like firearms. Ditto on the train stations having x-ray scanners plus the guards.
I live in Asia and they refuse to build malls anymore unless they can attach a condo and/or office spaces along with it to guarantee foot traffic. The area I was living in during the pandemic lockdowns had a mall, apartment, park, lake, and hospital right next to it for people to easily access. Such good infrastructure.
hmm i live in asia and ive not seen the office rule atleast in the country i live. where are you from?
@@mananshah9015 Malaysia
Most new malls in the US are like that. They are mixed-use. One area of the property has apartments. This video is looking at malls built in the 1970's. Much has changed since then.
In Norway, they're often built around transit hubs.
So if you're in say, Bergen West, your local hub is going to be Loddefjord, which again connects you to other places. Which means that you're going to pass by that place anyway, so you're pretty much guaranteed to have a bunch of people showing up on the mall anyway. They also offer park&ride parking out of the goodness of their hearts, and definitively not because it means more people will stop by the mall.
The mall also have stuff like the library, social services, etc. attached, so you have plenty of reasons for stopping by.
Those malls are not going under anytime soon, but they're also not quite as large as the US ones. They're more like a small bet on the future that paid off, and then they've been added to, or removed from until it grows into the size that works. Kind of a Strong Malls approach I guess?
@@mananshah9015 Well these types of malls are almost a given in new (90s onwards) developments throughout Southeast Asia. Expensive apartments pride themselves in having direct access to a prestigious mall and vice versa. Hotels and offices are common attachments as well. Every mall strives to be the most luxurious as possible to outcompete each other and that coincides with development of other amenities, as well as hiding parking lots underground as much as possible to show off their glitzy facade.
~Jakarta
Since I've been playing Cities Skylines lately, my kneejerk response to suburban problems is now "Robert Moses gone urbanist": as soon as a problem arises, you have an excuse to bulldoze everything in the area around the problem and put in a completely re-envisioned district with more efficient land use, a better transit corridor and protected bike paths.
The silver lining of dead malls is that actually, it's possible to do that with the site without displacement. (You'd have to also bulldoze the whole adjacent stroad to get the transit in, though, which might be harder.)
I recently had a realization that some of the largest malls could probably have a transit stop in the basement and sell off or otherwise redevelop the oversized parkinglot.
But yes, abandoned malls are ideal places to redevelop because its a massive lot with nobody living on it.
You could just narrow the street and use the rest of the stroad's width for transit. Start with BRT and you could do that with paint.
Too bad the real world isn't as simple as the swipe of a mouse in a video game. How many millions did you spend on permits? How long did you have to want for them? How many millions more poured into "hazmat" clean up? (some malls will be old enough to have asbestos in them.)
Amen brother. I'm sitting at a 50k city currently and the widest road i have is a 4 way one way road in industrial complex. All my residential, commercial and downtown areas are two lane trams or roads with bike lane. No traffic issues whatsoever.
This is why California and several other states are saying that all malls should include housing. It’s easier to add density to an empty lot.
I moved to the Philippines a year ago and the inner city malls here are a marvel to behold. Stretching several city blocks and as much as 10 or more floors these places are the heart and soul of major urban areas. These malls are serviced by well-developed inexpensive mass transit systems as well as cheap private cabs tricycles (motorcycles with enclosed side cars and Jeepneys (old, modified WWII jeeps stretched and converted to commuter buses). The malls contain most every American retailer plus many retailers unique to Asia swimming pools amusement rides and even church services are held in many malls.
America is one giant parking lot
God, that shopping center looks like a miserable hell.
Majority were built in the brutalist style.
One in my town is one of them with only 1 bit that was a old building from 1902 that looks nice.
I was 16 in 1980.
No internet, no cell phones, everyone was at the mall on the weekends. The parking lot was full.
That same Mall in 2023 is completely different than it was in 1980. The good stores are gone and the parking lot is always empty.
It's not just online shopping. It's the evaporating middle class. High-end malls are doing well. The middle class malls, the ones we all loved as teenagers (if you were born pre-2000), are the ones disappearing. Another factor is they built far too many of them, especially during the 2000s. The retail boom was out of control for the few years before the 2008 recession happened.
@@bchristian85i think these dead malls can be turned into proper walkable cities within cities.
All my local malls which are still around have added movie theaters and gyms and there are residential areas and apartments nearby like a 10 minute walk. Some are trying to be a transit hub or at least have a decent number of buses stop by but no light rail. They are still a shell of what they used to be like in the 80's and 90's and not the third place we'd hope for but I'm glad they are trying. I hope they build apartment complexes on the some of the parking lots and maybe add walking areas with gardens and plants and lots of tables and seating with little shops so we could just hang out and buy nothing if we feel that way.
That was very insightful at 9:25 that the suburban lifestyle makes it tempting to just reconstruct the world in your own home - because it's such a pain in the ass to get out into the world if you have to drive everywhere.
And this is one of the reasons Americans want bigger and bigger houses. In dense walkable places with plenty of third places, there are times when you feel that your home is just the place you store your things, because you spend so much time outside of it that only go back to sleep.
@@Nico_M. A big house is a status symbol. But, yes, over time, people tend to fill the space they have. As for the "man cave", we built it out of convenience (it's there, and we can use it as much as we want, whenever we want), and stumble into it's economy (it quickly pays for itself given the cost of a movie ticket, bowling/pool/arcade, night at the bar, ...)
Hmm I wonder why all my University friend, move to this depressing suburb area with big house once we start having children? We used to live in 15min city with bike line and just 12 km from CBD....... I am still living in the same neighborhood. the reason I still live in this area not because its bike-able but because its public transport and I love beach. but if we have second one there is no question we will move to that depressing suburb you hate so much. because we know in reality as long as there is good public transport their live not much worse than us.
I personally love driving. Especially since I have a nice car which I enjoy. I agree that it can be a pain in the ass to get out into the world if you have to drive everywhere but when I lived in the city I thought it was even worse to have to rely on busses and trains all the time. You have to go by their schedule, pay every time you ride them, they are usually crowded and you may have to stand, they still require masks in most cities, etc. In the winter when there is a snowstorm and I'm nice and warm in my car I always feel bad for the people at bus stops standing in the cold all the time. I knowsome urbanists love that lifestyle but it's not for me.
@@jfbeam My husband and I bought a 1,550-square-foot house and have resisted the temptation to move into a larger one. We'd only get MORE junk if we did. Instead, we paid down the principal on this house and had it paid off in 13 years. Is it a little small? Yes. But I'd rather be mortgage-free.
There’s a lot of malls in the US that are very bizarrely placed that have a lot of potential. In my hometown (south of San Francisco), there’s a dying mall that sits right on top of a metro station and is a 5 minute walk from the local passenger heavy rail station. It would be the perfect place to build dense housing alongside limited commercial and civic spaces.
Unfortunately, the mall and it’s land is currently expected to be bought by a biotech company which hopes to make it a corporate campus. It’s likely to be primarily focused on research, with paltry levels of residential and commercial areas.
Lots of malls were built up to take advantage of tax credits, and then sold off. Cincinnati actually had like 26 malls at one point because of this.
Seems like a good opportunity for a massive mixed-use development with housing, retail, and even ample new offices for the biotech company.
I already know you're talking about Tanforan. Fun fact: San Bruno Caltrain is an infill option for BART.
@@bootmii98 I don't understand why they built the BART and Caltrain stations separately. Makes sense to have just made them one station. Transferring would be easier, and the San Bruno Caltrain station is much closer to San Bruno's downtown than the San Bruno BART. At least the Tanforan redevelopment will add a lot of density (commercial, residential, and office)!
@@empirestate8791 that’s the stated objective, but I’m expecting it to become a large office park with commercial around the transit connections and limited dense housing. Having lived here for 20+ years, I’ve lost count how many times I’ve seen a tech company buy valuable land near transit connections, and still turn it into a soulless hellscape of asphalt and glass.
An American friend and his Scottish wife made the specific choice to _not_ get a pool. Years after they moved into that house, people still wondered "but... you don't have a pool?" "Nope." "But, but, but..."
Instead, they'd left their yards open; they were just grass, with some items that could be installed when the weather invited (a high net, a swing set...). Their yard was the suburb's public playground and, as he liked to say, "my children have 173 pools to choose from".
What amazes me is that it took almost 100 years for people to notice that this is not right.
there are 2 of the biggest industries involved, so it's not that unexpected, lots of lobbyism from oil and car companies which pretty much go in tandem, but not for ever though since oil industry probably will largely be replaced by the battery one (with related mineral extractions companies) and other electricity production industries
It's incredible for how retail-oriented our economy and culture is, we absolutely suck at making it efficient, safe or fun. Sometimes the traffic within the nearest power center gets so backed up you're waiting for 20 minutes to get out, not to mention the stores are so far apart and there's no ped infrastructure integrated within the huge space that you'll probably end up driving from store to store, making the one-stop solution a travesty.
Right? We are supposedly a hyper capitalist powerhouse and in a lot of ways we aren't even properly built for that.
If suburbanites understood the costs of maintenance for all the roads and spread out services, I think they would happily invite businesses in to help offset them. As is there is no impetus, as they've pushed all those costs to the city center they were so desperate to be away from.
And the trend of consolidation has left fewer players that can enter vacated space. I.e. when the only stores around are Walmart and Target, there is nothing else to take over the space.
They turned the older mall in my city into a giant office building with a food court for the employees. There are two other malls. One is always busy and will probably never shut down or be effected by the downfall of malls. The other is barely holding on. Years back it even banned kids under 18 from entering without parents or a legal guardian. That actually made me really mad because they had a theater there and I couldn’t go on dates their or see movies with my friends as a teen. And it’s ridiculous because most of the stores in the mall were teen focused. Hot topic. Skate shops. American eagle, gap, sports stores. All of it was for teens and kids except for stuff like dillards, jewelry shops, or perfume shops. The idea of the third place was out the window.
Buffalo?
It isn't ridiculous. Don't be mad at them. Be mad at the kids that caused trouble to cause that ban. They didn't do it all willy nilly just to piss you off. The last 2 1/2 generations were taught that the world revolves around you and you can do anything you want. Which, of course, brings a lot of troubling behavior. And ultra lefty policies of "Do whatever you want. No more bail! You will be free to go no matter what you do!" doesn't help either.
Ironic how mall walkers have to drive there. It's probably too dangerous to walk to the mall from home.
Atleast when it comes to the US.
Europe and britain isn't as bad in some places.
Metrocenter being a slight exception though it has busses and regional rail as alternatives.
The real fallacy leading to the collapse of malls is in thinking that suburbanites actually want an urban experience. If I wanted a city experience, I'd drive to the city and walk around, or just move there. The draw of the suburbs is space, privacy, and limiting the people you have to interact with. If that's not for you, fine... That's why cities still exist. There is plenty of space for people to have different desires in their housing and communities.
Btw: hearing your conclusion at the end, sounds like you came to the same conclusion, and it was really refreshing to hear that.
When the first fully enclosed mall was built here in San Antonio in 1960, North Star Mall, it was truly a one-stop mall - grocery store, toy store, bakery, hardware store, etc. However, over time, it has become a series of stores selling the same items (primarily shoes).
I'd be interested to hear why that mix of businesses devolved to mostly shoe stores.
@@karenryder6317it's like the observation that many different lines of animals evolve to be crabs 😂
As a Minnesotan i giggle at the way he pronounces "Edina"
Same! I’ve even heard a few people say “Edna” 😂
The redevelopment of SF's stonestown galleria mall is excellent. It's a car-centric mall that's going to be turned into a mixed-use new urbanist development by constructing new housing and retail on the parking lots. A massive new underground garage is going to be constructed to replace the lost surface parking. The new district will have open space, entertainment, retail, and housing - and the old mall will remain unchanged.
You just articulated the reasons I HATE suburbia and malls. It's depressing!
eventually in europe they started plopping them into city centers rather than remote business parks, designed so that theyre accessible both by foot & parking garage & usually with outward facing cafes, ice cream parlors or fast foot joints to lure in hungry pedestrians - and generally they try to make the outside facade fit the other buildings, and the "anchor" is usually a big grocery store, which is probably more robust.
People live in the suburbs because they don't want to live in an urban area. You don't "bring the world into your house" to keep from getting in the car. You do it so that you can enjoy these things in the peace and quiet of your own home.
People who want walkable amenities generally want to live in an urban area rather than the suburbs.
Most malls these days are mostly empty of people and closed stores since covid shut down everything but they were declining before that too
In the UK and Ireland, the major anchor tenant for shopping centres (our name for shopping malls) is usually a well-known food retailer. That's to attract families who then buy clothes hardware etc in the other shops while they're at the centre... Makes perfect sense to me. In recent years with the development of retail parks, with big box stores, adjacent to shopping centres there were no food retailers in the retail parks. When German discounters, Lidl and Aldi arrived on our shores they often opened stores in these retail parks. I never really understood why US planning regulations insisted on separating retail from residential in the way that forces people to drive to a mall rather than strolling to the grocery store on the corner of a housing development. In Dublin, in the residential suburb where I live, you're nearly always within walking distance of a grocery shop. Fewer car journeys, fitter people.
As someone who can not drive because of my vision, surburbs are horrible. I have lived in sev states and have found I can be the most independent in an urban setting. I grew up in a rural area and left as quickly as I could because I had to depend upon others to drive me around.
It’s in Reno. That’s in Nevada. It’s a desert. It’s hot. People in hot locations don’t typically hoof it over asphalt parking lots in hot weather. It seems pretty obvious to me as to why the shopping is spread out and why there’s a lot of parking lots around the stores.
Malls should be retrofit as schools. Small store spaces could make good classrooms. Backrooms make decent teacher offices and often have access halls that could be accessible for office hours. They already have robust food courts, administrative offices, and typically a gym. Also they are nicer than the schools I went to
Excellent idea!
One abandoned anchor store in our dying mall is being converted into apartments--but not ones most people can afford.
@@karenryder6317 it's reusing a built space and not building a new one, so I'll take the win I guess. The neighborhood is walkable and the weather is remarkably consistent, is it a 55+ community?
Mall design should of been like micro climates. Housing up top, shops below, parking garage attached to "entrance" area nearest highway. Like a mini city!
The key to walkability is density, How do you convince people who don’t want to be packed into dense areas to be packed into denser areas? Most downtowns are walkable, The issue is most Americans don’t desire apartment buildings, rather desire a big house with yard space and being isolated, which causes sprawl resulting in needing a car.
Discouraging me from taking my car downtown is why I don't go downtown. I like the ability to make more choices in less time about where I go and what I do. Unfortunately, that means I no longer am very aware of what is downtown at this point.
Being stuck on someone else's timetable was easier when i was younger.
Being on someone else's timetable isn't a problem when that timetable is frequent and reliable.
Also, don't pretend that just because you are in a car doesn't mean you aren't stuck on someone else's timetable. Rush hour is nothing but a bunch of people's timetables screwing up everyone else's timetables. At least a reliable transit system that is separated from traffic is a predictable timetable.
@@smileyeagle1021 Man I would never head downtown during rush hour on purpose. :)
For a sense of where I am. I'm in Austin and I timed the difference between taking a car and taking a train because one of my friends wanted to travel by train one day. A 14 mile trip took 34 minutes longer by train not including the 48 minutes we waited for a train to arrive to get back (I didn't think to time to first waiting time since we were talking).
Since I was there with a friend the extra time didn't seem too bad since there was good conversation. That seemed worthwhile. But I'm way to OCD to sign up for that amount of my life spent waiting. For me there's got to be something better to do with myself.
My friend has a much more romantic vision of the train, yet when I asked how much he used it a year, he said only a few times. Sometimes it may be just where you are located.
Another example. When I was younger and living in Houston, I blew the engine in my car and had to take the bus to work each day for 9 months. The trip had taken me around 40 minutes each way, but now took 2 hours each way. Plus, I couldn't get groceries on the way home and ended up standing in the rain a lot, which was miserable. Any romantic notions I had were tainted at that point. I've talked to several people who were forced to take mass transit in Texas due to circumstance and hear the same from them.
mall parking lots might also be good for farmers markets, art fairs, and other assorted temporary attractions. an empty parking space doesn't make money
I live in a large southwestern US city that's been putting a lot of effort into breaking away from the built-in car dependency. One super cool thing the city did manage to do in the 80s/90s was put transit hubs super adjacent to malls and bus stops inside of mall parking lots. So you didn't have to walk across a huge parking lot to go shopping or go to work.
One of the malls has a dedicated crosswalk with a full bilateral sidewalk to the main entrance.
We still heavily used malls as third spaces when I was a teen in the early 2000s, so it was extremely awesome that these areas were designed with a balance between cars and pedestrians in mind.
Of course, these malls were built in areas that were already established as urban. Which does make a difference.
These two urban malls in the area experienced a smallish drop in popularity when internet shopping first became widespread. But they've rallied quite a bit (with a lot more local businesses renting spaces), even as other older shopping districts, like downtown, have been heavily invested in by the city.
I think this has a lot to do with a factor that that urbanites in in more temperate climates tend to overlook. Outdoor thirdspaces & shopping districts and reliance on private vehicles are a lot less realistic and a lot more dangerous in more extreme climates. If Vegas wasn't a major tourism destination, the strip would be vacant for a huge portion of the year.
Walking or biking a few blocks in triple digit (F) heat isn't just miserable, it can be deadly. The same is true, to a lesser extent, for very cold climates. Aside from the extreme heat or cold, severe weather is also more likely in these areas.
Indoor areas that simulate the outdoor pedestrian-focused areas in more temperate climates are very important spaces for all of us living in less comfortable year round conditions. Especially as climate change continues to accelerate.
(Yes, Reno gets a lil hot and a lil cold, but it's definitely not an extreme climate)
A couple of comments on southdale.
It's in Edina, and the I is pronounced like eye
They currently have built apartments and a hotel on the fringes of the parking lot.
It's got a fitness studio and a government service space for things like license plates, etc.
The mall of America was built a few miles away, so southdale is heading towards the dying mall status but still has quite a few shoppers
The Dayton corporation at one time had Daytona, Mervyn's California, and Target. Daytona was sold to Macy's, Mervyn's is no longer with us, and Target remains. One of their largest revenue streams is from rent in malls.
They are based in Minneapolis, MN.
In the Philippines, malls are like mini cities. There's retail stores, cinemas, restaurants, recreational spots, dept stores, grocery stores, and so much more, you can even hold concerts and school events here. If it's big enough there are open spots you'd consider parks. Malls are THE third place in the country. Though some of their layouts can get a little funky, it is still very enjoyable to go to a mall here. And the thing is with parking their, usually built within a certain section of the building and even underground and within those parking areas, right beside them are transportation terminals for commuters. Sometimes a whole light rail train station would be connected.
This wasn't really to brag, I'm not even sure if I could call it that, but I'm just surprised at how different malls are in the rest of the world.
This is true. Malls in the Philippines that focused just on shopping went bankrupt and got demolished.
@@matthewivanjudeponciano1354 or even bought out by big mall corporations like SM Supermalls
Thank you for being an urbanist channel that finally points out that malls aren't the issue, but the American implementation of them are. Malls fare better in Asia where they're actually in the city, connected to transit and provide more conveniences than just shopping-often connected to services and even living spaces.
I wonder if any developers of suburbs (so many new ones here in central FL) will be willing to experiment with a new type of housing plan that will include a mix of grocery stores, pharmacies, retail stores, office buildings and restaurants. If it proved popular enough, more developers would follow suit. But nobody seems willing to be first.
Empty anchor stores aren’t closed indefinitely as long as there is Spirit Halloween.
I’d like to see an indoor mall designed like a downtown area with trees, little “outdoor” patios to eat on, and a little train then “cars” to play in. Kind of like they used to have in Las Vegas.
The thing I don’t understand is that apartments or a neighborhood attached to a mall would actually guarantee a continuous income stream for all the businesses especially if the real estate company was the land lord of the apartment complex. I guess this is why more apartments are doing this now.
Part of the mall vacancy problem is they are not an ideal place for a small business, even something like a booth can be incredibly expensive. I was part of a company trying to open a 4x6 foot booth in a local mall, although you have to pay for a 10x10 foot space centered on the booth. The requirements were the booth had to be of their design, we needed to be insured for $3 million, the fees were $6000 + 5% taxes + 5% "promo" per month (a fee that they never explained in any detail), signage had to be done through them for $250 (a plastic screen with the business name on it we could have had done for $50), and we would have to hire a professional merchandiser (yes, our company was not allowed to merchandise our own products). Needless to say the deal fell through, as we would not even be allowed to use display cases or shelves and instead had to lay the product on the table meaning very little of the product range could be showed off.
With all these costs, is it any wonder that businesses are preferring online retail? The company in question dissolved as our suppliers were interested in a physical store front and already had an online presence, so the whole project was centered on these small booths expanding their market presence. Notes, prices are in Canadian dollars.
Another note, empty stores are actually good for the mall and intentional. The mall is after all a property and the property value is tied to the rent that they charge, with this mall in particular being $60 per square foot (and why a previous company I worked for mandated $300 per square foot of merchandise within their store). It's good to have empty stores, because the alternative is lowering the rent to something more affordable, but lower rent also means the properties value reduces. Malls are an investment and like any other investment property they must show a continual growth or at the very least stability of their property value to keep attracting investors. This also leads to interesting arrangements where the anchor store I worked for was required by their lease to also maintain the roof of their section of the building. Unsurprisingly they served their investors by letting it fall into disrepair.
you have just explained why grocery stores are not at malls - they are a low margin business and would have to charge much more to operate there
@@stanmarcusgtv Spot on, the mall I mentioned does have a grocery store and they are rather pricey.
It's funny that one of the self-defined world's freest societies have such restrictive zoning laws.
-Hey, how are you doing?
-Hey, fine, and you?
-Fine, fine. I was planning to eat a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. With a diet coke, of course.
-Nice, you do you.
-And tomorrow I'll take my wife to a monster truck show.
-Great! Those things are awesome!
-And we're planning on expanding our home, we want a few new rooms and we're thinking on building another floor above us.
-What?! Are you crazy?! What kind of maniac would want that?!
Don't forget that suburban homeowners have a say in where they spend money. Make the shopping area less car friendly and they'll shop somewhere else, or buy things online.
the funny part with all the footage in your video is you cannot says where there came from.because you can find they exact setup almost everywhere in canada or us suburb
How did American houses looked before the suburban experiment?
As far as detached homes, they were generally on smaller lots on a grid of streets and didn't have a driveway or a garage, had sidewalks in the front, and were within walking distance of shops and restaurants. Of course, there were also row houses, townhomes, and apartments as well.
@@danielkelly2210 Thanks!
Not necessarily always super close within walking distance, but yeah, on smaller, square, lots in a blocking grid. I would give you a proper link, but UA-cam nowadays blocks all of those. Like, for example, in my hometown, the older housing of it is a stretch of extensively tree-covered, smaller town houses between downtown and the foothills. Following message will have image.
For historical reference, that city, Boise, and its metropolitan developed around rail up into the early 1920's but then, as cars became more prevalent, tram services became discontinued and in some cases the lines were simply paved over.
upload(daht)Wikimedia(daht)org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Table_Rock_Boise_View(daht)jpg For a good picture.
This explains why my citizens in SimCity 2013 complain about not having access to shopping and parks... Yet they were just 2 blocks away
Think suburbs also encourage more online shopping and delivery as well.
That also ends up killing off many smaller buisnesses that require people walking past to notice.
My towns has it's slap bang in the middle and it ended up replacing a high street. Now it's atleast half empty despite having all the local bus lines, ability to walk to it and plenty of parking with 2 surface, 1 semi underground and a parking garage. 1 of the surface lots becomes a market on thursdays.
Malls are like 90% clothes, 5% food court, 5% non-grocery misc. They suck.
drive to walk...terrible!!!
Building more malls is like building more roads just for more traffic to park on.
13:51 We designed our cities such that children need to run for their lives in the same spots every day. What a horrendous, negligent, wasteland. How can anyone be okay with this.
Why they do not make underground parking or roof parking to those malls? Underground parking allows more access points inside of the mall and it is also good on bad weather. Then there could be residential areas closer to malls without those massive parking lots around it? It is done like that over here in North Europe. Malls are thriving over here and they are building more malls. The city centers and downtowns are dying. Also many malls over here have many more things than just shops. For example spa, hotels, library, movie theater and all kinds of activities so they actually work nicely as a third space. And of course they are nicely accessible with public transport(train, tram, metro and bus for example), bicycles and on foot also from the very near residential buildings. I know at least four malls in my area where you can get in straight from a local commuter train stop and some others with direct metro access.
They don’t make malls without thousands of parking spots in the states. They simply do not do it
Last i checked the roof tends to be for deliveries and storage for the stores inside...
Our mall is virtually impossible for anyone to access on foot. When they built it, it was placed at the intersection of two major highways & they forced out the vast majority of the people whose houses used to be onside the same block the mall is in, & it's backed up to a river/ swamp that we definitely don't want drained. (Actually had a whole thing about that, recently. They were planning to fill in a big part of the swamp immediately behind the mall to build a hospital. Thankfully, local environmentalists shut that down.)
Anyway, hard to get to, most of the people who live adjacent to it would have to cross a highway to get in, it gets so busy that it even deters some drivers who don't trust themselves from entering that entire area, most of everything to do besides the shopping was phased out by the last recession &, when they do do something to gather a crowd it seems like it's 99% kid centric, hoping to drag the whole family down there. It's surrounded by tons of other strip malls & single building businesses for quite a ways around, but it's difficult for some to feel brave enough to just wander around & navigate it all on foot. There's a frigging church, a hotel & a DMV built into the thing, now & a movie theatre, a minor league baseball field, another hotel & an expo center are all also in the general surrounding complex & there's at least one of every single kind of store you can imagine across the span of it. I guess it attracts enough people to get by, no one *likes* going there, anymore. When I was a kid, there used to be an arcade, a three decker carousel & sitting areas with wishing well fountains. All of that is gone. Up until the recession, there was Borders books- a book store with a coffee shop built into it, so you could sit down, get something to eat & enjoy the book you just bought. The actual mall itself is about three major stores & the hotel all smashed together &, I swear, 80% of the small stores in between just sell designer clothes.
Do you really not realize that is WHY the mall was built there? flood plains are not suitable for residential areas. A big mall with a big parking lot gives flood waters LOTS of room to dissipate before reaching homes. Malls can be secured and "sealed" much better than homes and no one dies if one gets flooded.
I'm a personal transportation supremacist. You'll never convince me that separating myself from my car will grant me greater individual freedom, mobility, or personal benefit than having it, and public transportation can get bent.
Yeah, this video could probably be described as “How evil cars and despicable single family home suburbs destroyed America!” The practicality of personal ICE transport and the quality of life issues a SFH affords is ignored. Tiresome comparisons of American cities to European cities… Americans think a hundred years is a long time, Europeans think 100 miles is a long way…
They know you won't buy as much if you have to carry it home on foot or on a bus. Maybe if there was a delivery service at the mall where you could leave your purchases and they would be brought to you the next day, people might be more inclined to go there without their own vehicle.
This is likely going to be something that will catch on. I will not buy a lot of new things unless I get my hands on it. A lot of stores can be more show-rooms where you use it to browse and scan the QR codes onto your phone and the item will be shipped to you. It will save store space and give people a chance to continue their day without worrying about carrying stuff around. Imagine being able to go grocery shopping without needing to go home immediately afterwards. Instacart style services will always exist but this would offer an alternative while also being convenient in a different way.
That shopping centre you got an ad for is really shocking to me, my ideal of a shopping centre is thst you drive up (or take other public transit/walk) and park in one place off to the side, then you WALK around the centre and go to all the shops you want, then head home. It’s kinda horrifying to be honest. That shopping centre looks like you need to drive in, park up outside one shop, buy your stuff, then drive to the front of a different shop and park up there to buy stuff. That just blows my mind, I can’t imagine someone actually designing a shopping centre like that, usually the parking is in one or two areas with a few more frequent transit stops.
I appreciate you, thank you for making content.
From the netherlands, the recipe for a good mall seems to be: at a junction of 2 modes of mass transport (bus, tram, metro, train), with easy bike access, plenty underground parking, and plenty to do other than dining and shopping. You should never have to question if something you're looking for is sold at a mall unless it is extremely niche.
It's Ee-Dine-Uh not Ee-deeen-uh. Also, ironically, Southdale is accessible by bus. Direct to the door. As are the other "dales" around Minneapolis & Saint Paul. And even the Mall of America is accessible on the LRT or bus.
Back when I was carless and healthier, I used to take the bus all the way across town to the mall. There were closer malls, but they all involved transfers and a lot of sitting around waiting for a connection or walking a mile or more to the other crosstown route. Seems the bus riding clientele were not the best. That mall became a bit hostile to bus riders, and even went as far as moving the bus stops way out to the edge of the lot. I even had some rentacop harass me for wearing a backpack... something you need on the bus to carry stuff..
When they built Mall of America, my husband asked me, "Since all the other malls are -dales, will this one be 'Airdale' because it's near the airport?"
The video opens with complaints about tiny store islands inside a vast ocean of parking lots. Well, I am an urban resident who is on foot most of the time - but recently I was in a car in a rare trip to the suburbs and we stopped by the famous Woodbury Common mall in Rockland County, NY.
We just wanted to get something to eat - but to our great surprise, the amount of parking was tiny and all used up. We figured that there must have been some adjacent lots that we couldn't see, so we drove around looking for it, couldn't find any - and finally just left.
I'll never return after that experience. So there you go.
Unfortunately, a lot of "urbanists" do not understand that accessibility is one of the most important things about commerce. Developers would not use up such huge sections of their land for parking if they didn't think it would be necessary to attract customers.
5:40 This is why I love public libraries. There's no expectation of spending money; you can look through the aisles, read, watch, listen, browse the net, without any obligations whatsoever. They feel like a true third place.
I’m from the Czech Republic and my parents recently moved back there after my dad retired. There are a total of two malls that I know of that are near where my parents live (near is a strong word) however this mall has a slew of different stores including a butcher shop, grocery store, household goods store, vehicle store for maintenenance etc. it was really different
Vancouver has gotten good at making walls pedestrian friendly....
1. Build good transit to the mall (Rail or BRT/express buses)
2. Redevelop all surface parking into dense housing & extra commercial space (Vancouver builds too tall now IMO, but better than before)
3. Done. You can keep the existing mall building or renovate/rebuild. This is how so many Vancouver suburbs did for their smaller 'downtowns' and 'town centers'.
EDIT: Examples or redeveloped malls near Vancouver: Brentwood Town Center, Lougheed Town Center, Richmond Center (in progress), Oakridge (in progress).... There are other malls that were built from ground up with transit/walkability features (Metrotown, Aberdeen), or at least have good transit access and dense development across the street (Coquitlam Center)... Probably more examples locally, and definitely in Asia.
I was about to comment similarly. agree about the "too tall" towers. Brentwood especially.
I hate how it's missing the middle option. Giant condos or massive single family homes. Yay zoning
it's interesting to note that many malls in AMERICA were built (and financed) by big stores that had their own real estate companies. They were designed to find, purchase, and acquire land for where they could build new stores. SEARS had one of the largest real estate portfolios for exactly that reason, and developed entire malls centered around their stores. In your article, you mentioned that DAYTONS was the developer for SOUTHDALE. It too, wanted a new location. MARSHALL FIELDS also did this with many CHICAGO and MILWAUKEE locations, with their development becoming places where there anchor stores existed. Not only did they get new store locations, but they made money on the mall development and getting rent from the competition.
I honestly didn't think there were malls anymore. I'm in north east Ohio where we're famous for our abandoned malls. In my brain I went "was this made in 2004?" LOL. When I was a kid malls were definitely a 3rd place for me and my friend group though.
Important background on that first Mall, Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota in the US. You need to understand that the Dayton Development Corporation - which stripped out all the non-shopping elements of Gruen’s plan - is a subsidiary of Dayton Department Stores (now known as Target). So of course Daytons Department Stores, which was paying to build the Mall, was never going to prioritize anything other than shopping. Dayton’s was a great department store, and still is great in its current Target incarnation. Nothing evil here, just a company looking to maximize over the long run its return on investment.
Growing up in the early ‘60s two suburbs over from Southdale, we went there as a family often. You can’t explain now how magical it felt as a kid to go there. New, clean, safe consumerism - it was the future ;) But even as a small child I never understood Southdale’s central courtyard, the Mall’s supposed “community center”. It was a bizarre uninviting mishmash that as I recall we nor anyone else ever went into. I can only agree with Frank Lloyd Wright on that one!
And just because it needs to be said, Edina is pronounced E-die-nah. ;)
In northern Vigina in the Dullus/Sterling/Loudin area, there are few outdoor mall/coomunities of upscale shops on a grid of a couple of blocks, around that are parks and luxury multi-floor (not quite high rise) condominiums. The Dullus Town Center is one but the one I am thinking about is smaller and more "nuclear". I think there are office buildings and a school too. I forget the name of it but I hope it catches on. I am 59 and live miles from the real necessities - grocery, pharmacy, doctor, general mechandice, hardware store, and entertainment. I am thinking of retiring to a place like that, not a senior community, but a place of all ages within a couple of walking blocks with everything you need.
Fun watch! My first job was at the Gottschaks anchor store at Park Lane over a decade ago, and when I was working the mall portion had already closed…it took them forever to redevelop the area! You may want to check out the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, WA. It has always been a fairly busy mall but over the last few years it has been surrounded by apartments, some right up against the mall. Of course, there’s still tons of parking space but I feel like they’re slowly chipping away at it. They are also expanding the rapid transit from Seattle to reach this mall which will mean living there would give you access to all the mall, Seattle’s downtown and university districts, and the Airport…now that’s the dream! The one thing the area appears to be missing is a real grocery store other than a Target and Costco, though most could probably make do with that and there’s still plenty of space for a Sprouts or whatever.
My husband and I have really considered moving to that area, getting rid of the cars would be great and being able to walk to Target or the movies would be my dream, but the rent is still a little rich for us
I was never in better health than when I lived in NYC: constantly walking everywhere, carrying my groceries many blocks while walking, etc... great natural exercise. Sprawled-out car couture is terrible for our minds and our health.
When outdoor malls became popular, I never understood it... I'm in Florida, it sucks! I want to walk inside the damn mall with the A/C.
I'm from Reno. If you don't have a car, it's like not having legs, especially in the suburbs. Everything you said you didn't like is dialed up, and the whole country side lights on fire a few times a summer.
The problem isn't cars, it's big corporate chains and big box stores. Many of us long for the days of independent diners, hot dog stands, and bowling alleys. Large googie-style neon signs! Pure Americana!
All of those were killed off thanks to cars.
Interestingly, on the West Coast, I can't think of a single store in a downtown area that I would actually want to shop at for any sort of regular shopping. Here in SF there IS a Target downtown, but it's small, cramped, and short on the stuff I would want to buy at a normal sized Target, making it more of a hassle to get to than anything else, especially because there's only expensive paid parking nearby, making any trip a purely public-transit affair, heavily limiting the amount and kind of goods I think about buying there, and I am already willing to carry far more than most people would on public transit (between 80 and 100 pounds of groceries, which is probably well in excess of what most people consider practical).
It really strikes me that we've rarely in America thought to use grocery stores, or chains like Walmart that need huge amounts of space anyway (and the larger ones have grocery sections) as anchor stores! The only food available at the mall beyond the food court tends to be boutique shops that have a very limited selection. Covering a wider range of basic needs with a mall would certainly help to prevent decline.
I'm not sure if it's still there post pandemic, but a localish mall to me tried out the concept of renting the first floor of an anchor store space to an indoor flea market. It was still developing as of 2019 but I haven't been back there since. I think that's a great idea honestly, thrifting is great for people of varied budgets and gives independent people a space outside their home to sell personal items without having to rent a store front. And for the company owning the thrift, as long as business is going well, they do not need to worry about some folks ending their booths, as others will take their place - rather than an entire storefront closing up shop when a person is not able or does not want to continue selling. The best benefit for a community is offering a place to buy various used goods from others in the community rather than buying/selling online, especially as sites like eBay charge hefty participation fees these days.
In the same vein, those places would be a good location to hold famers markets, craft fairs, other community events that need a decent sized footprint and may benefit from being able to continue on even in poor weather.
I recall seeing banks and at least chain style medical/dental/eye care at indoor malls years ago, though I'm not sure if any of those are still around.
If you think you have a better idea then try it and see if it catches on. If the only way to make your idea work is to outlaw other options then you have a bad idea
The internet is killing malls. If the only thing they provide is a bunch of random shops, online shopping is just far superior. They should embrace being third places, because otherwise I am not going there at all.
Every parcel of land has a given demand. Developers build according to that demand to maximize profits. Building tall is more expensive, but if the demand is there, and there is profit to be made, it will be built.
Higher demand areas tend to have taller buildings.
Restrictive Euclidean Zoning, parking requirements + car centric urban planning interfere with this free market mechanism.
Developers would likely prefer to build more space efficient malls - taller, less parking, smaller stalls, lots of kiosks, near other tall buildings, conveniently located to transit stations, etc. But it’s illegal or economically impractical because they need to build so much parking. It’s difficult to build a mall over 2 floors, and not surrounded by a sea of surface parking.
The parking area costs money to build and maintain and that cost must be shared by store tenants.
Because parking requirements effectively restrict the amount of mall space. Individual stores have much higher rents to pay than otherwise.
Only big retail chains can afford such rents and that’s what you see in the US. This is why it’s almost all chain restaurants, chain stores, chain hotels. Mom and Pops don’t stand a fighting chance.
Best way to repurpose dead mall property would be to bulldoze it all up and remediate the soil, after back filling. Plant grass and trees on it for either pasture or plant vegetable or grain crops on it. There. It's fixed.
My city heavily relies on the tax revenue generated from its dying mall area. If we turn it into a pasture or prairie land, the city would need to increase taxes everywhere else or cut services to stay afloat. Good luck getting a signoff on that!
@@mangos2888 My point was that most urbanized land would be put to better use as a cornfield or cow pasture. As I have commented on another page, I much prefer rural / small town living to any urban environment. Once a place gets above about 10000 in population, it's simply unlivable.
pedestrians don't buy anything because they have no way to transport it home with them anyway. plus as a pedestrian after shop 1, even buying tiny stuff, you got bags of shop 1 which you can't take into shop 2, which, you ditch in your car and then go into shop 2, oh yeah. that car which you don't have with you or which is miles away. :P
Southridge Mall on the Southside of Des Moines, IA has been essentially dead for a very long time. It was somewhat recently reoccupied by DMACC (Des Moines Area Community College). They've taken over about half of the mall and turned it into classrooms. And it's not unreasonable to think that they may end up taking over the entire mall at some point. Unfortunately, there's a limit to what classes DMACC offers at Southridge and students often have to end up traveling to other campuses at some point in pursuit of a degree.
The old food court has long been demolished. And much of the mall has a lot of problems with leaks, mold, mildew, and a lack of working air conditioning. My friends used to visit Southridge's theater when my friend was in high school (before we met) and said the theater was very very cheap, but you had to put up with the smell of mold, mildew, and urine and that the theater itself wasn't air conditioned - that was in the early 2000s and before DMACC moved in.
So as a suburbanite type person, I want to mention that my 3rd space is pretty much anywhere with my extended family. I don't really have a need for a public town square because I don't really have a need to interact with a bunch of strangers outside of the internet. I have lots of different family members living in close proximity to visit and spend time with. It's true that I'm usually only outside for exercise or for yard work, but it's far from dead here. There are kids walking to and from school a lot and neighbors walking their dogs, exercising, or also doing yard work. When I walk my own dog over by the park there's usually like 20+ people at either of the two parks within a 10 minute walk from my home.
I honestly hate going into urban areas. I don't feel nearly as safe there as I do either in nature or in the suburban neighborhoods. The only time I've been the victim of a crime was in Paris. I think most people who push for a bigger emphasis on urban development are just generally less family centric. It's fine to put less emphasis on your family as a matter of personal choice, but I also think those of us who want to have 30+ family members over for a Saturday Barbeque should have a place to do that as well.
You can make an argument that it's not fair for us family types to take up so much space I suppose.... but if the space is available, then the only real issue with suburban single-family home life is the dependency on transportation. However, as more things become available online and as more people are able to work from home, then the transportation issues decrease as well. Regardless of whether I buy something or not, I'm going to see a delivery truck or two driving around the neighborhood every day. I only get gas about every 6 weeks, so I don't really feel like this lifestyle is inherently bad for the environment versus an urban lifestyle.
I lived in Europe a long time, and I'm not fully against everything over there. I did enjoy walking around city centers in smaller towns, but I also really felt restricted and confined when I was home. I value my personal liberty and choice over what I do at home very highly, and you just didn't have nearly the amount of freedom over there as you do here... Dumb example, but I couldn't even mow my lawn on a Sunday or a Holiday because someone would have called the cops on me for disturbing the peace.
Malls are a caricature of the arcades of old Europe. You can still visit them in some cities. There are even some outside Europe, such as the queen Victoria building in Sydney.
I do not own a car, never have in my 64 years. I have not been to a mall in decades. Architects and urban planners need to visit Montreal.
Montreal is wonderful aside from the million dollar housing price tags.
@@saynotop2w
I think you're confusing Montreal with Toronto and Vancouver as Montreal is not among the top 15 most expensive places to live in Canada.
The real and only reason why malls are dying off is the internet. Why travel when you can have anything you order delivered straight to your door cutting out the middle man of the mall. It saves on space, energy, travel, cost, and everything. When people are able to directly buy the products from the factory that they are made in then they no longer need a giant parking lot which has super stores in.
I always thought malls should have apartments above them. It’s just a zoning change.
I live in reno. And Miss park lane mall had all the stores I liked and the theater at the end. Met up with my friends, played games at the game store, had something to eat, or saw a movie. I miss that mall a lot.
Apparently this guy doesn't own a car.
Irony or not, irony or not, irony or not...
Like it'll be as time moves along. How many folks can afford to buy a new car at a $60,000 starting price ?
Oh, used cars prices keep a parallel rise.
I live four blocks away from a mall that’s pretty small. It’s actually an open space with all the stores surrounding it, but anyway, it’s located also where the heavy rail, bus lane and pretty soon, a light rail 🚈 . Oh happy day. That won’t cause gentrification. Oh wait… 😑
If I had to walk up and down the street to get to the stores where I wanted to buy things, I'd stay home and have everything delivered. The best thing about shopping centers is that they're compact; you park near your target, walk inside, make your purchase, and leave, all with a minimum of human interaction.
Imagine having human interaction. .
@@benobaars To quote Gene Hackman (as Lex Luthor): "People are no damn good".
When I was first time in the US suburbs I learned it the hard way that sometimes there is physically no way to walk from the mall to your home.
This video made me realize why I hate shopping so much. I avoid ALL shopping until I have no other choice. Out of cat food, or out of personal food. I go not even 1 time a year for clothes or others. This is because it feels like a job having to get into my car, go to a massive lot and find a spot, and walk 3 min to 1 store that I need 2 things from. Then repeat at the next store. I hate it. If I could walk down the street and find everything I need, I’d shop way more frequently.
"Tesla's will stop global warming"
🤡🤡
You’re right, battery powered cars don’t deal with the core issues causing global warming. People have done lots of research on this.
Parents: OMG GO OUTSIDE
The outside they built:
We don't recreate spaces in our homes like home theaters because we don't want to walk. We do it because movie theaters are expensive, dirty, and lack a level of comfort that home provides.
At home, I can pause the movie, change the volume, get my own snacks, or rewind if I missed something. And it costs less!
"We"?
If you're shopping, you just might need a car to haul what you bought. Makes sense that there is a lot of parking.