These "outdoor malls" have the ridiculous name of "lifestyle centre" and are basically trying to mimic the feeling of a nice walkable downtown. It's absolutely absurd that we defend car centrism but people DRIVE to a place just to walk around
I agree that this system is absurd. I don't understand how many people drive to a mall they really like, especially an outdoor mall, and not think, "Why aren't our cities built like this by default?"
As a person who works for a real estate company that specializes in malls the major factors that kill malls are; - the over malling of America, most cities and towns could have 1 mall and been great, but durning the 80’s and 90’s those same cities had 2-4 of them built. - bad owner/managers (Namdar and Kohan), they get malls and suck every penny out of them cutting staff and not leasing. - complicated REAs and ownership (sears boxes), that made redevelopment difficult.
Does look pretty well integrated, at least better than the outdoor malls in Denver. Only thing I see is there isn't any transit to Bee Cave from Austin. Adding a BRT or Light Rail there would be fantastic.
As a former resident of Belgrade, it's so funny to see one of our shopping malls presented as an example. Not my favorite to be honest, but I get why you chose it to demonstrate - the urban integration is perfect. Belgrade also had it's share of dying malls - your map makes it look like it's only a US phenomenon. Look up "Piramida", "Stankom", "Čumićevo sokače" (the last one has been kinda revitalized since)
Your points shown here are excellent. In particular, as you stated; most malls only have specialty type stores compared to "everyday" stores because the malls are hard to get to. Never thought about it that way. My view was that the rents are so high for little places like a barber shop; post office branch; and other small local businesses. Once upon a time, I lived in a place that had three nearby superior shopping malls with excellent reputations, 'subway" access and other advantages. Moved to a new city to where the malls are difficult to get to by car, parking is annoying and not worth the effort and coupled with the rise of e-commerce. Yes, our car centric culture sucks.
First and foremost, there are plenty of malls in America that are thriving, which is why I always hate this topic. It gives off the impression that all malls are dead which isn't the case. The biggest reason why there's a lot of dead malls is because well America has malls and I mean a lot of malls. Some of what I've looked up at the height it was over 100k malls in the United States. I'm using statica as a source. Another thing about usa malls is that, they're really only owned by a few owners and let's say some of them do not have great reputations. Much like there is only a few that own theme parks by the way, and you can also look and see how depending on who is managing the differences of closings. Another thing is about parking. Lots well. Malls tended to over build parking. Even at the height of malls popularity.
I like the mall. The decor looks like an update to the 1970s earth tone decors, which I think made malls more inviting and organic, warm and cozy. Extra points for waterfalls and water features and the naturalistic planters, which is also a 70ish thing. I think the all-white and tile 90ification of malls made them sterile, bland and unpleasant, one of the things thats destroyed malls.I don't think indoor malls are the problem because they ARE walkable, and pedestrian oriented, America becoming even more car centric is also whats destroying malls, many have been torn down adn replace with the car centric strip malls. Whats lacking in American cities is mass transit, and high density mixed use development that puts more people in a smaller area which makes mass transit more feasible since it puts more people within walking distance of a transit line, and the bullseye layout of american cities with high density in the middle and low density on the outskirts which promotes the fallacy that high density equates to isolation from nature, when it is suburbs that isolate from nature, because you could build high density right up against nature preserves that people could walk to.
something i just realized is that basically all malls here in sweden look similar (with seas of parking) but have massive grocery stores and dedicated bus lines, and thanks to that they do quite well!
Instead, it must be said, that many of our city centres are the equivalent of dead malls for similar reasons (equity take overs, rent increases, and competition from even more car oriented suburban shopping centres, what we'd call an "external shopping centre").
@@reinatakagawa eh in my experience it's not quite that bad, it's moreso that downtowns in smaller places are constantly cycling through stores and those stores tend to be rather expensive. Like sure you might see one or two empty units at any time, but the big thing is that if you re-visit a year later you might see an entirely *different* set of stores inhabiting the facilities.
@@swedneck In some cities, like Västerås, the city centre is a functionally a dead mall, where sections of the once large pedestrianised zone, with its walkways and covered malls lined with many shops, are now literally closed and boarded up. Some of the bridges have been demolished. The variegated shops that once were, have mostly closed--now replaced by the only thing that seems able to survive in the city centres--sports bars and sushi. We're talking about the closure of at least a 100 shops. The external shopping centre in the east of the city--which also has a covered mall section, is also dying, despite being located next to a well-patronised hypermarket. The only one doing well is the nightmarish external shopping centre on the other side of town, which is basically killing all non-car oriented shopping for many many miles around. No doubt a similar pattern is repeated in other towns, though outside of Eskilstuna, whose own parasitic external centre on the west side of town is negatively affecting it, I am not much familiar with the particular details.
car dependancy brings road dependancy and that brings taxation like were in the feudal ages... crazyness. That parking lot could be way small if 80% of it was in a parking garage, but the best bet would be better mass transit and a small parking garage and parking lot so most would get here by mass transit. I actually think personal vehicles as a choice is the right way to go but great mass transit would make most people rent if they wished to drive... I am an urbansit and I do think parking lots are beautiful structures when in moderation when landscaped right...
personally I see a MUCH darker future for all kinds of malls, because it's extremely difficult to beat the convenience of online shopping. So I only see a future for three types of shopping locations: * daily needs (primarily groceries). Located where ever many people pass by - like transit stations, freeway off-ramps or the intersection between your home and the next main road. Also: The more, the better. Much smaller than currently, as almost all non-food items can be removed. * stores that need parking by the type of goods they sell. Hardware or furniture stores are the most obvious ones. Those can be located basically everywhere. * malls and other "combined shopping areas". These must be a destination on their own. Architecture, entertainment and lots of dining options are probably far more important than any stores. But expect even these to shrink far (!) below their current size.
God. I hate (parking and driving/taking to light rail) Park Meadows. But they have a Lego store…. So it is worth it. You should head down to the Springs and check out the Chapel Hills Malls where the old Sears was torn down and replaced with apartments. It is a great concept but it isn't very walkable
I remember when The Vistas was constructed. It wasn’t for about 2 years after it was completed that I finally figured out how to get there, because in their infinite wisdom, the stores & tenants of that entrance had no interest to someone going to the outside section! It’s nice to walk through the area for a few minutes but I never went into a shop. It’s been a few years since I’ve been there & I don’t feel like I’m missing anything!
I started to notice that even here in Eastern Europe, when some new shopping mall opens, they only have parking lots, there is no sidewalk from the street which would lead to the mall. Regarding the nearest shopping mall from my house, people "made" path through the grass through which you can access the front doors of the mall - but still, after that, you find yourself on the surface of a parking lot and need to walk another 50 meters to the entrance.The only upside here is that drivers are used to pedestrians, so everyone drives carefully in that area. But still, it sucks not to have designated pedestrian entrance to the mall.
That's another point of aggravation I found myself wondering as I wandered the area of Park Meadows before. Why the DUCK can't I walk from the public sidewalk directly to the walkable part of this mall? I have a feeling you are going to mention about this, haven't gotten that far in the video yet, though. It's annoying to me how poorly designed the area is for those outside a car. It's a shame too, Park Meadows is, overall in IMHO, a beautiful mall--interior, I mean. Modern but still has character unlike most buildings these days. LOL I forgot The Great Indoors was now home to AtHome. I visited it as a Spirit Halloween. OK I GOT to mention about Metrocenter. I found out about it through creators like Retail Archaeology and The Store Dude. I believe The store dude even got inside after it was abandoned if I remember right!
Have you seen those Eddie Lampert Kmart stores that had parking on the roof? I think they were in the islands somewhere, definitely not mainland US. Belmar definitely reminds me of that. A little bit.
People don't have a lot of money to spend at malls anymore, everything is getting more expensive, because of this, businesses can no longer rent in malls. That, and more people are doing online shopping, people are just too lazy to drive to malls anymore, it takes effort to get ready, get your mind all set up for the day, then drive there and hopefully no one pisses you off while you drive there, and then you have to spend money on gas, etc. Online shopping is more convenient, you can just stay in the comforts of your home, you can look like crap and still get things you want. Only the essentials people will go out and get like groceries. It's funny, the car is suppose to make things easier to get to, but in fact, lots of people are too lazy to drive. Our comforts in life have made us lazier, not to mention fatter too, so that contributes to things. When humanoid robots becomes reality, I imagine we will get even lazier. We will have the robots do all the hard work. The one benefit of going to the store instead of shopping online is that you can get whatever you want that day. You have to wait a few days up to a week for online shopping.
You did an excellent video! Many other channels and viewers in comments do not take the extra moment to think about the multiple layers that factor into the death of American malls. Many just default to “it’s Amazon” but you have done a great job peeling the onion as we cry losing our malls.😢 You touched for a quick moment on “if the city is doing well”… Yes! Talk about this more in upcoming videos. We are losing many malls in towns where jobs have moved away decades ago and younger people have migrated to locations in better financial standing. We can use towns along the steel / rust belt as examples. The malls are dead or already demolished because of no jobs, high crime and an aging, decreasing population. As you already know, many malls are now being demolished for “lifestyle development” opportunities. Many mall properties with parking moats will have value partly due to the fact they are large parcels with roads and sewer already in place. Now, let’s build overpriced loft apartments, reduce retailer count, connect the train or bus, add some office spaces and there you go!….. wait… how can everyone afford that? Hmmmmm. Ha… anyway, your video and ability to tell a story with actual facts is very awesome! Please keep up the great work! 🎉🎉🎉
Good points on retail and social interactions. On a related note is that it seems that gas station / electric station places that have good quality options, or even novelty items are unusually successful, more so than many malls. But, that is another topic all together on the various transit convenient stores, whether combined with gas sales, or at a subway station, or within an airport.
2 mins in and already SMHing. This experiment is flawed. Why do you need to walk to a furniture store? Are you planning on carrying a sofa on your back to the train station? Will you have a mattress under your arm as well?
That's a pretty funny idea actually. I was originally planning on walking further west to a sandwich shop, but by the time I got to the furniture store it was getting late and I was cold. I probably should have mentioned this in the video, but it felt out of place as it didn't have as much to do with the mall's design which is the main topic.
@@JkWillis a lot of people get hung up on the US not being as pedestrian friendly as countries in Europe but ours is way too big to not have a car and too fat to make walking a requirement
It is OK because the Mall parking lots ( here in Cali anyways) IS the only space that they can park the hundreds and hundreds of tesla ev cars that no one wants. SO see the malls really did help out the moderns`. HILARIOUS
So much bad information, but suffice to say the premise is fundamentally and deeply flawed. Parking layouts are not killing malls, that is simply ludicrous. What is killing malls, and has been killing them for three decades at this point, is the decline of the American middle class. Retail shopping malls were created to cater to the middle class. They provide a higher quality shopping experience by allowing consumers to access a wide range of retailers in a single location along with entertainment and food options. Having ample parking IS A FEATURE NOT A BUG. People do not want to walk to stores in the heat, sun, rain, cold, snow etc. carrying back their purchases and trying to bring children along if they have any. They want to drive their full sized American cars with their climate control, isolation from the elements and other people, entertainment systems, and ample cargo and passenger space for their purchases and family. They want point to point transportation on their schedule with full flexibility, something only the automobile provides. If people did not want parking at malls they never would have been built with it in the first place. Not only that, malls would never have had several decades of success before starting to fail if the parking had been the cause because it was there from the beginning. The parking has nothing to do with it whatsoever. The problem is the decline of the market segment which supports malls, the American middle class. The decline of manufacturing starting in the 1970's (which was the result of bad trade, tax, economic, industrial, fiscal, foreign, monetary, and environmental policies made in Washington) resulted in falling real wages, increasing income inequality, and a shrinking middle class. The decline of malls has tracked the decline of the middle class well and it's not a coincidence. When the market they were built to serve no longer exists they too will come apart. This is further reinforced by the fact that malls are being built in areas with growing middle classes, such as the East Asian manufacturing states and the gulf oil states. This bullshit about parking lots killing malls is utter nonsense.
"People do not want to walk to stores in the heat, sun, rain, cold, snow etc." because the country's city planning wasn't built for it. Many people would if it was convenient but it isn't. Almost like that's the point of this person's video.
I do actually agree to an extent, i think indoor malls can work also in a mass transit city also, but i dont think their decline is due to parking lots. Also look at the stores in malls, mostly caters to a narrow demographic of women and maybe a little apparel for men. Malls used to be more variety but now are mainly just apparel and jewelry. The radio shack, borders etc is gone. Malls even had sporting goods and musical instruments. Thats probably because of the big box stores in the strip mall replacing them. Malls also indicate a social culture, because going to malls is a see and be seen social event I think where you go with friends and meet people. America becoming more of an antisocial culture is linked to their decline, which also may be linked to the decline of the middle class. Americans in my experience are generally unhappy, reclusive, and rude.
I do think you make a good point about the declining middle class being at least partially responsible for the death of American malls. However, having been to some countries with a similar problem, including Japan & the UK, their malls aren't even close to dying, and a big part of this has to do with transit accessibility and having diverse shopping options. When I visited Coimbra, I took the highly reliable city bus to the mall shown at 00:37, and the bus was always packed with shoppers of what I gathered to be varying levels of income. Living in Portugal, I would go to the mall to get groceries, tea, fast food, electronics and more, and it was a fun and easy thing to do. This is how my mother (who used to work at Cinderella City) tells me US malls used to be like. Regardless of the affordability, I just don't feel like going to a US mall like Park Meadows anymore, as these car-centric malls are so difficult to get to that I usually just don't have the time.
@@JkWillis Japan and the UK are not comparable in any way shape or form. There was a statistic from several years ago (before so much of the retail decline) that the US had 46 square feet of retail for every person, the next closest country was the UK with only 9 square feet for every person. The takeaway is that malls in Japan and the UK were never built as a middle class amenity like the US had. Both countries have far fewer malls and the ones that they do have were built to serve mostly upper class and the upper middle class. Basically they never built what we had therefore there isn't anything to have fail. Second, you are falling into a severe causation vs correlation fallacy. You are assuming that the fact that a country lacks good road infrastructure and access to automotive transportation is the cause of the success of their (extremely few and not in any way comparable to the US) malls. Again, this theory is easily shown to be baseless because US malls were built and were successful for several decades before their decline. However, US (and foreign) transportation has been consistent over this entire time period. Third, your mother is simply wrong. Malls built in the US since the post war period were built to be accessed by automobile because that is what the vast majority of consumers preferred. Fourth, your conjecture that going to the mall is harder with a car than riding a bus is so far removed from reality that it cannot be taken seriously. I've lived in Europe, I've lived in US cities with developed transit options, and I've lived in US cities built almost exclusively to be navigated with an automobile. Hands down the easiest way to get around has been the automobile. Its superiority to buses, trains, etc. is so great that I have difficulty understanding how people claim otherwise without being knave. The automobile is point to point transportation with full flexibility, climate control, removal from the elements, cargo capacity, and passenger room. It takes me less time to drive to the mall then it took to walk or bus to one when I was living in Europe (again because there are very few malls there and they are built for the upper class mainly). This theory that parking lots are killing malls is completely unsupported by even the most basic examination of the historical record which clearly shows that malls were built with, and successful with, automotive centric design in the US where people are rich enough to afford the luxury of automotive transport no one wants to walk to the damn mall. The decline of malls has to be attributed to some change in condition which actually happened well after they were built and the parking lots utterly and completely fail this test. However the decline of the middle class fits it very well.
@@jameskeefe1761 To your point James, I contend that the decline of the mall has nothing to do with transit options, and that the two are entirely uncorrelated. Thus, I would agree that malls can work with transit, and examples of such exist in the US (the mall under the old World Trade Center is a prime example). However in the US where people have the ability to afford automotive transit and prefer it most malls are built that way. The bottom line is transport has nothing to do with the decline either way as malls were built with the transit that was available in mind and transit preferences have not changed. I agree there is a social angle to the mall which is being lost with them. The tilt towards less variety in the stores I think is partially a result of the decline itself, ie. the reverse causality, but of course these issues are complex and inner related systems with feedback loops. For example Radio Shack closes due to lower spending in stores from a shrinking middle class, which in turn results in less mall traffic.
Inner city malls are also closing down. See the San Francisco Westfield mall that closed last year, located right in the heart of downtown. ua-cam.com/video/H4qWXHuYqf8/v-deo.html There is no parking moat to blame there. Blaming car centrism is a red herring. The real issue is the change of culture over the last two generations. In the 1980s and 90s the mall was the place for teenagers to hang out. Teens generally don't go to malls anymore because they prefer to hang out online either watching and making UA-cam or Tik-tok videos. Back in the day if you wanted to be popular you had to go out in the real world to influence people. Now people can do that online. Facebook, UA-cam, Tik-Tok, instagram, etc is what really killed the mall.
That mall is a rare case of exceptionally bad property management combined with a massive increase in crime (ludicrous amounts of shoplifting). Having been there a few years ago, that mall definitely didn't entice me to ever return when there were armed police guards standing outside several stores. Every dead mall has a nuanced story of its decline and I don't claim to understand everything behind the scenes. However there are trends and if the SF Centre mall had the same issues and was also car-centric, it probably would have closed several years ago.
@@JkWillis The same thing happened to the Fulton Street mall in New York City. It has access to 5 subway lines and zero parking. Mall is kaput now. These are not isolated incidents. Car centrism is not to blame for the decline of America's malls. Crime is a factor but so are the cultural changes mentioned in my original post. People just don't hang out at malls anymore.
I pass by Westfield malls several times a month as I exit the BART station there. I don't recall lots of teens ever being there as compared to tons of adults and tourists. Covid hit Westfield hard but crime due to the raising of shoplifting as a misdemeanor to $950 has a lot to do with it. There are systemic problems with Westfield that's unrelated to the premise of the video which remains largely true that car-centric malls have run out of steam, especially with the internet. Remake the suburban malls as third places with walkable/transit options and they will thrive again but cities need to allow these places to be built.
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These "outdoor malls" have the ridiculous name of "lifestyle centre" and are basically trying to mimic the feeling of a nice walkable downtown. It's absolutely absurd that we defend car centrism but people DRIVE to a place just to walk around
I agree that this system is absurd. I don't understand how many people drive to a mall they really like, especially an outdoor mall, and not think, "Why aren't our cities built like this by default?"
As a person who works for a real estate company that specializes in malls the major factors that kill malls are;
- the over malling of America, most cities and towns could have 1 mall and been great, but durning the 80’s and 90’s those same cities had 2-4 of them built.
- bad owner/managers (Namdar and Kohan), they get malls and suck every penny out of them cutting staff and not leasing.
- complicated REAs and ownership (sears boxes), that made redevelopment difficult.
The Hill Country Galleria in Beecave is one of my favorite examples of a fully walkable outdoor mall that functions more like a town
Used to work there in the AT&T store and it’s incredible. It’s really sad that only wealthy people get access to stuff like this.
Does look pretty well integrated, at least better than the outdoor malls in Denver. Only thing I see is there isn't any transit to Bee Cave from Austin. Adding a BRT or Light Rail there would be fantastic.
@@JkWillis I highly agree, that's the biggest problem for me. It's nice once you get there but it is a pain to actually do it
As a former resident of Belgrade, it's so funny to see one of our shopping malls presented as an example.
Not my favorite to be honest, but I get why you chose it to demonstrate - the urban integration is perfect.
Belgrade also had it's share of dying malls - your map makes it look like it's only a US phenomenon. Look up "Piramida", "Stankom", "Čumićevo sokače" (the last one has been kinda revitalized since)
Your points shown here are excellent. In particular, as you stated; most malls only have specialty type stores compared to "everyday" stores because the malls are hard to get to. Never thought about it that way. My view was that the rents are so high for little places like a barber shop; post office branch; and other small local businesses. Once upon a time, I lived in a place that had three nearby superior shopping malls with excellent reputations, 'subway" access and other advantages. Moved to a new city to where the malls are difficult to get to by car, parking is annoying and not worth the effort and coupled with the rise of e-commerce. Yes, our car centric culture sucks.
Damn i thought this had more views. good work!
First and foremost, there are plenty of malls in America that are thriving, which is why I always hate this topic. It gives off the impression that all malls are dead which isn't the case.
The biggest reason why there's a lot of dead malls is because well America has malls and I mean a lot of malls. Some of what I've looked up at the height it was over 100k malls in the United States. I'm using statica as a source.
Another thing about usa malls is that, they're really only owned by a few owners and let's say some of them do not have great reputations.
Much like there is only a few that own theme parks by the way, and you can also look and see how depending on who is managing the differences of closings.
Another thing is about parking. Lots well. Malls tended to over build parking. Even at the height of malls popularity.
I like the mall. The decor looks like an update to the 1970s earth tone decors, which I think made malls more inviting and organic, warm and cozy. Extra points for waterfalls and water features and the naturalistic planters, which is also a 70ish thing. I think the all-white and tile 90ification of malls made them sterile, bland and unpleasant, one of the things thats destroyed malls.I don't think indoor malls are the problem because they ARE walkable, and pedestrian oriented, America becoming even more car centric is also whats destroying malls, many have been torn down adn replace with the car centric strip malls. Whats lacking in American cities is mass transit, and high density mixed use development that puts more people in a smaller area which makes mass transit more feasible since it puts more people within walking distance of a transit line, and the bullseye layout of american cities with high density in the middle and low density on the outskirts which promotes the fallacy that high density equates to isolation from nature, when it is suburbs that isolate from nature, because you could build high density right up against nature preserves that people could walk to.
something i just realized is that basically all malls here in sweden look similar (with seas of parking) but have massive grocery stores and dedicated bus lines, and thanks to that they do quite well!
Instead, it must be said, that many of our city centres are the equivalent of dead malls for similar reasons (equity take overs, rent increases, and competition from even more car oriented suburban shopping centres, what we'd call an "external shopping centre").
@@reinatakagawa eh in my experience it's not quite that bad, it's moreso that downtowns in smaller places are constantly cycling through stores and those stores tend to be rather expensive.
Like sure you might see one or two empty units at any time, but the big thing is that if you re-visit a year later you might see an entirely *different* set of stores inhabiting the facilities.
@@swedneck In some cities, like Västerås, the city centre is a functionally a dead mall, where sections of the once large pedestrianised zone, with its walkways and covered malls lined with many shops, are now literally closed and boarded up. Some of the bridges have been demolished. The variegated shops that once were, have mostly closed--now replaced by the only thing that seems able to survive in the city centres--sports bars and sushi. We're talking about the closure of at least a 100 shops.
The external shopping centre in the east of the city--which also has a covered mall section, is also dying, despite being located next to a well-patronised hypermarket. The only one doing well is the nightmarish external shopping centre on the other side of town, which is basically killing all non-car oriented shopping for many many miles around.
No doubt a similar pattern is repeated in other towns, though outside of Eskilstuna, whose own parasitic external centre on the west side of town is negatively affecting it, I am not much familiar with the particular details.
car dependancy brings road dependancy and that brings taxation like were in the feudal ages... crazyness. That parking lot could be way small if 80% of it was in a parking garage, but the best bet would be better mass transit and a small parking garage and parking lot so most would get here by mass transit. I actually think personal vehicles as a choice is the right way to go but great mass transit would make most people rent if they wished to drive... I am an urbansit and I do think parking lots are beautiful structures when in moderation when landscaped right...
personally I see a MUCH darker future for all kinds of malls, because it's extremely difficult to beat the convenience of online shopping. So I only see a future for three types of shopping locations:
* daily needs (primarily groceries). Located where ever many people pass by - like transit stations, freeway off-ramps or the intersection between your home and the next main road. Also: The more, the better. Much smaller than currently, as almost all non-food items can be removed.
* stores that need parking by the type of goods they sell. Hardware or furniture stores are the most obvious ones. Those can be located basically everywhere.
* malls and other "combined shopping areas". These must be a destination on their own. Architecture, entertainment and lots of dining options are probably far more important than any stores. But expect even these to shrink far (!) below their current size.
Deserves more views. Excellent content
Thanks for the aerial image of Spokane...with so much parking. Slowly but surely we'll infill (some of) those lots. 😂
As a European I generally like to do my shopping in places where zero shootings have taken place.
God. I hate (parking and driving/taking to light rail) Park Meadows. But they have a Lego store…. So it is worth it.
You should head down to the Springs and check out the Chapel Hills Malls where the old Sears was torn down and replaced with apartments. It is a great concept but it isn't very walkable
I remember when The Vistas was constructed. It wasn’t for about 2 years after it was completed that I finally figured out how to get there, because in their infinite wisdom, the stores & tenants of that entrance had no interest to someone going to the outside section! It’s nice to walk through the area for a few minutes but I never went into a shop. It’s been a few years since I’ve been there & I don’t feel like I’m missing anything!
I started to notice that even here in Eastern Europe, when some new shopping mall opens, they only have parking lots, there is no sidewalk from the street which would lead to the mall. Regarding the nearest shopping mall from my house, people "made" path through the grass through which you can access the front doors of the mall - but still, after that, you find yourself on the surface of a parking lot and need to walk another 50 meters to the entrance.The only upside here is that drivers are used to pedestrians, so everyone drives carefully in that area. But still, it sucks not to have designated pedestrian entrance to the mall.
That's another point of aggravation I found myself wondering as I wandered the area of Park Meadows before. Why the DUCK can't I walk from the public sidewalk directly to the walkable part of this mall? I have a feeling you are going to mention about this, haven't gotten that far in the video yet, though. It's annoying to me how poorly designed the area is for those outside a car. It's a shame too, Park Meadows is, overall in IMHO, a beautiful mall--interior, I mean. Modern but still has character unlike most buildings these days. LOL I forgot The Great Indoors was now home to AtHome. I visited it as a Spirit Halloween. OK I GOT to mention about Metrocenter. I found out about it through creators like Retail Archaeology and The Store Dude. I believe The store dude even got inside after it was abandoned if I remember right!
For some reason, shopping malls have become a thing in Poland.
from soviet shithole to american shithole
Have you seen those Eddie Lampert Kmart stores that had parking on the roof? I think they were in the islands somewhere, definitely not mainland US. Belmar definitely reminds me of that. A little bit.
Keep up the good work man! Loving these new videos. 😊
never understood the hype around the USA, as a french everything about it resembles a dystopian hell beside the natural parks
Not really there's a lot of areas every bit as nice as France. Plus it's not cramped like European countries. You likey haven't been here.
People don't have a lot of money to spend at malls anymore, everything is getting more expensive, because of this, businesses can no longer rent in malls. That, and more people are doing online shopping, people are just too lazy to drive to malls anymore, it takes effort to get ready, get your mind all set up for the day, then drive there and hopefully no one pisses you off while you drive there, and then you have to spend money on gas, etc. Online shopping is more convenient, you can just stay in the comforts of your home, you can look like crap and still get things you want. Only the essentials people will go out and get like groceries. It's funny, the car is suppose to make things easier to get to, but in fact, lots of people are too lazy to drive. Our comforts in life have made us lazier, not to mention fatter too, so that contributes to things. When humanoid robots becomes reality, I imagine we will get even lazier. We will have the robots do all the hard work. The one benefit of going to the store instead of shopping online is that you can get whatever you want that day. You have to wait a few days up to a week for online shopping.
You did an excellent video!
Many other channels and viewers in comments do not take the extra moment to think about the multiple layers that factor into the death of American malls. Many just default to “it’s Amazon” but you have done a great job peeling the onion as we cry losing our malls.😢
You touched for a quick moment on “if the city is doing well”… Yes! Talk about this more in upcoming videos. We are losing many malls in towns where jobs have moved away decades ago and younger people have migrated to locations in better financial standing. We can use towns along the steel / rust belt as examples. The malls are dead or already demolished because of no jobs, high crime and an aging, decreasing population.
As you already know, many malls are now being demolished for “lifestyle development” opportunities. Many mall properties with parking moats will have value partly due to the fact they are large parcels with roads and sewer already in place. Now, let’s build overpriced loft apartments, reduce retailer count, connect the train or bus, add some office spaces and there you go!….. wait… how can everyone afford that? Hmmmmm.
Ha… anyway, your video and ability to tell a story with actual facts is very awesome! Please keep up the great work! 🎉🎉🎉
Good points on retail and social interactions. On a related note is that it seems that gas station / electric station places that have good quality options, or even novelty items are unusually successful, more so than many malls. But, that is another topic all together on the various transit convenient stores, whether combined with gas sales, or at a subway station, or within an airport.
🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸 belgrade mentioned 🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸
holy shit we get it
Walkability 😻
utah's city planning is genius maybe the best in the country
2 mins in and already SMHing. This experiment is flawed. Why do you need to walk to a furniture store? Are you planning on carrying a sofa on your back to the train station? Will you have a mattress under your arm as well?
That's a pretty funny idea actually. I was originally planning on walking further west to a sandwich shop, but by the time I got to the furniture store it was getting late and I was cold. I probably should have mentioned this in the video, but it felt out of place as it didn't have as much to do with the mall's design which is the main topic.
@@JkWillis a lot of people get hung up on the US not being as pedestrian friendly as countries in Europe but ours is way too big to not have a car and too fat to make walking a requirement
It is OK because the Mall parking lots ( here in Cali anyways) IS the only space that they can park the hundreds and hundreds of tesla ev cars that no one wants. SO see the malls really did help out the moderns`. HILARIOUS
Subbed!
So much bad information, but suffice to say the premise is fundamentally and deeply flawed.
Parking layouts are not killing malls, that is simply ludicrous.
What is killing malls, and has been killing them for three decades at this point, is the decline of the American middle class. Retail shopping malls were created to cater to the middle class. They provide a higher quality shopping experience by allowing consumers to access a wide range of retailers in a single location along with entertainment and food options. Having ample parking IS A FEATURE NOT A BUG. People do not want to walk to stores in the heat, sun, rain, cold, snow etc. carrying back their purchases and trying to bring children along if they have any. They want to drive their full sized American cars with their climate control, isolation from the elements and other people, entertainment systems, and ample cargo and passenger space for their purchases and family. They want point to point transportation on their schedule with full flexibility, something only the automobile provides.
If people did not want parking at malls they never would have been built with it in the first place. Not only that, malls would never have had several decades of success before starting to fail if the parking had been the cause because it was there from the beginning. The parking has nothing to do with it whatsoever.
The problem is the decline of the market segment which supports malls, the American middle class. The decline of manufacturing starting in the 1970's (which was the result of bad trade, tax, economic, industrial, fiscal, foreign, monetary, and environmental policies made in Washington) resulted in falling real wages, increasing income inequality, and a shrinking middle class. The decline of malls has tracked the decline of the middle class well and it's not a coincidence. When the market they were built to serve no longer exists they too will come apart.
This is further reinforced by the fact that malls are being built in areas with growing middle classes, such as the East Asian manufacturing states and the gulf oil states.
This bullshit about parking lots killing malls is utter nonsense.
"People do not want to walk to stores in the heat, sun, rain, cold, snow etc." because the country's city planning wasn't built for it. Many people would if it was convenient but it isn't. Almost like that's the point of this person's video.
I do actually agree to an extent, i think indoor malls can work also in a mass transit city also, but i dont think their decline is due to parking lots. Also look at the stores in malls, mostly caters to a narrow demographic of women and maybe a little apparel for men. Malls used to be more variety but now are mainly just apparel and jewelry. The radio shack, borders etc is gone. Malls even had sporting goods and musical instruments. Thats probably because of the big box stores in the strip mall replacing them. Malls also indicate a social culture, because going to malls is a see and be seen social event I think where you go with friends and meet people. America becoming more of an antisocial culture is linked to their decline, which also may be linked to the decline of the middle class. Americans in my experience are generally unhappy, reclusive, and rude.
I do think you make a good point about the declining middle class being at least partially responsible for the death of American malls. However, having been to some countries with a similar problem, including Japan & the UK, their malls aren't even close to dying, and a big part of this has to do with transit accessibility and having diverse shopping options. When I visited Coimbra, I took the highly reliable city bus to the mall shown at 00:37, and the bus was always packed with shoppers of what I gathered to be varying levels of income. Living in Portugal, I would go to the mall to get groceries, tea, fast food, electronics and more, and it was a fun and easy thing to do. This is how my mother (who used to work at Cinderella City) tells me US malls used to be like. Regardless of the affordability, I just don't feel like going to a US mall like Park Meadows anymore, as these car-centric malls are so difficult to get to that I usually just don't have the time.
@@JkWillis Japan and the UK are not comparable in any way shape or form. There was a statistic from several years ago (before so much of the retail decline) that the US had 46 square feet of retail for every person, the next closest country was the UK with only 9 square feet for every person. The takeaway is that malls in Japan and the UK were never built as a middle class amenity like the US had. Both countries have far fewer malls and the ones that they do have were built to serve mostly upper class and the upper middle class. Basically they never built what we had therefore there isn't anything to have fail.
Second, you are falling into a severe causation vs correlation fallacy. You are assuming that the fact that a country lacks good road infrastructure and access to automotive transportation is the cause of the success of their (extremely few and not in any way comparable to the US) malls. Again, this theory is easily shown to be baseless because US malls were built and were successful for several decades before their decline. However, US (and foreign) transportation has been consistent over this entire time period.
Third, your mother is simply wrong. Malls built in the US since the post war period were built to be accessed by automobile because that is what the vast majority of consumers preferred.
Fourth, your conjecture that going to the mall is harder with a car than riding a bus is so far removed from reality that it cannot be taken seriously. I've lived in Europe, I've lived in US cities with developed transit options, and I've lived in US cities built almost exclusively to be navigated with an automobile. Hands down the easiest way to get around has been the automobile. Its superiority to buses, trains, etc. is so great that I have difficulty understanding how people claim otherwise without being knave. The automobile is point to point transportation with full flexibility, climate control, removal from the elements, cargo capacity, and passenger room. It takes me less time to drive to the mall then it took to walk or bus to one when I was living in Europe (again because there are very few malls there and they are built for the upper class mainly).
This theory that parking lots are killing malls is completely unsupported by even the most basic examination of the historical record which clearly shows that malls were built with, and successful with, automotive centric design in the US where people are rich enough to afford the luxury of automotive transport no one wants to walk to the damn mall. The decline of malls has to be attributed to some change in condition which actually happened well after they were built and the parking lots utterly and completely fail this test. However the decline of the middle class fits it very well.
@@jameskeefe1761 To your point James, I contend that the decline of the mall has nothing to do with transit options, and that the two are entirely uncorrelated. Thus, I would agree that malls can work with transit, and examples of such exist in the US (the mall under the old World Trade Center is a prime example). However in the US where people have the ability to afford automotive transit and prefer it most malls are built that way. The bottom line is transport has nothing to do with the decline either way as malls were built with the transit that was available in mind and transit preferences have not changed.
I agree there is a social angle to the mall which is being lost with them. The tilt towards less variety in the stores I think is partially a result of the decline itself, ie. the reverse causality, but of course these issues are complex and inner related systems with feedback loops. For example Radio Shack closes due to lower spending in stores from a shrinking middle class, which in turn results in less mall traffic.
Inner city malls are also closing down. See the San Francisco Westfield mall that closed last year, located right in the heart of downtown.
ua-cam.com/video/H4qWXHuYqf8/v-deo.html
There is no parking moat to blame there. Blaming car centrism is a red herring. The real issue is the change of culture over the last two generations. In the 1980s and 90s the mall was the place for teenagers to hang out. Teens generally don't go to malls anymore because they prefer to hang out online either watching and making UA-cam or Tik-tok videos. Back in the day if you wanted to be popular you had to go out in the real world to influence people. Now people can do that online. Facebook, UA-cam, Tik-Tok, instagram, etc is what really killed the mall.
That mall is a rare case of exceptionally bad property management combined with a massive increase in crime (ludicrous amounts of shoplifting). Having been there a few years ago, that mall definitely didn't entice me to ever return when there were armed police guards standing outside several stores. Every dead mall has a nuanced story of its decline and I don't claim to understand everything behind the scenes. However there are trends and if the SF Centre mall had the same issues and was also car-centric, it probably would have closed several years ago.
@@JkWillis The same thing happened to the Fulton Street mall in New York City. It has access to 5 subway lines and zero parking. Mall is kaput now. These are not isolated incidents. Car centrism is not to blame for the decline of America's malls. Crime is a factor but so are the cultural changes mentioned in my original post. People just don't hang out at malls anymore.
I pass by Westfield malls several times a month as I exit the BART station there. I don't recall lots of teens ever being there as compared to tons of adults and tourists. Covid hit Westfield hard but crime due to the raising of shoplifting as a misdemeanor to $950 has a lot to do with it. There are systemic problems with Westfield that's unrelated to the premise of the video which remains largely true that car-centric malls have run out of steam, especially with the internet. Remake the suburban malls as third places with walkable/transit options and they will thrive again but cities need to allow these places to be built.