Much has been documented about the current economic crisis and its effects on the overall economy including the loss of jobs, the large numbers of people losing their homes to foreclosure, and the loss of major manufacturing industries which provided workers with decent wages and health care which supported families and led to a burgeoning middle class. But one side effect has been the decimation of the retail sector and the rise of vacant malls, strip malls, big box stores, and shopping centers, otherwise known as dead malls.
As the economy has declined, a number of retailers have closed their doors forever or either scaled back operations due to the recession. Most of these once-thriving retail giants are well-known (Circuit City, Comp USA, Linens 'N Things, Sharper Image, Mervyn's, KB Toys, Wickes Furniture). The bulk of these retailers once anchored the American consumer institution known as the shopping mall. As most people know, the post-war period after World War II led to a huge number of children being born which eventually came to be known as the Baby Boom, and their parents escaped the crowded inner cities to move to spacious homes in the suburbs. As these children grew up, the parents needed somewhere close to shop so they could provide the best in consumer goods for these children, so urban planners and developers came up with the idea of the shopping mall. The original malls were open air spaces with one huge anchor tenant (usually a grocery store or department store surrounded by several smaller stores), but as time went on and Boomers themselves got into their teens, malls suddenly became larger, and they also became enclosed indoor shopping centers with a couple of anchor tenants and a cornucopia of smaller retail outlets that appealed to everyone. They were designed as public meeting spaces where the parents could shop, the kids could play at the arcade, and everyone could catch the latest Hollywood blockbuster at the local multiplex which was either enclosed within the mall or just outside of it. All of this merriment was conveniently located in one space with plenty of parking for everyone.
As time went on, the original malls became too small, so even bigger malls were created, such as the Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the King of Prussia mall in Pennsylvania. At the same time, a parallel development was occurring in which larger big box stores began to dominate the landscape, particularly along busy traffic routes. The rise of stand alone stores like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Lowe's gave shoppers the convenience of having all their needs under one roof while at the same time giving busy people the option of getting in and out quickly after shopping. As the megamalls and the big box stores became more popular, the older enclosed malls began to lose shoppers, and while some malls worked valiantly to keep up with shoppers' needs and tastes, most of them began to decline. Initially, a few of the satellite stores would disappear, usually replaced by a lower level retailer, but over time those retailers would disappear, and the spaces would be left empty. Soon afterward, the anchor tenants, most of which were Sears, J.C. Penney, Mervyn's, or other regional department stores, would pull out the older malls for newer pastures, leaving a shell of what the mall once was.
One of the more interesting sites online documenting the decline of such shopping malls is Deadmalls.com, which diaries the death and decline of shopping centers across the United States. It also documents the attempts of municipal planners to attempt to convert such dead or dying malls into lifestyle centers, often to hilariously disastrous effects. In many cases, older malls have been left to die due to the development of big box stores down the street which siphon away customers and traffic, but in some cases new malls were built to accommodate the bustling new exurban population which took advantage of the sparkling new housing developments built during the housing boom of the middle of this decade, only to crash within the last year or two. In a number of cases, band new commercial shopping developments were built only to sit empty because of the foreclosure crisis.
On a more personal note, I grew up in Rockford, Illinois, where we had a few shopping malls to accommodate the local population. We had a few smaller malls, such as the North Towne Mall and the Colonial Village Mall, which had one huge department store and a few smaller stores. But the most popular shopping malls were the Cherryvale Mall in southeast suburban Cherry Valley, and the Machesney Park Mall in north suburban Machesney Park. As a teenager I worked as a busboy in a sit-down Greek restuarant chain, and it was a very popular place for teenagers to hang out. It was anchored by J.C.Penney, Kohl's, and a regional department store called Prange's (which was bought out by another regional department store chain called Younker's, which itself was bought out by another chain called Bergner's, which eventually merged with Carson Pirie Scott). During my teen years the Machesney Park Mall was bustling with shoppers, and it created much of the revenue for the village of Machesney Park. However, by the late 1990's the mall began to decline with the rise of big box shopping strips on the east side of Rockford. The rival Cherryvale Mall did its best to stay relevant and update its stores, but the Machesney Park Mall was unable to keep up, losing two of its anchor tenants (Bergner's, Kohl's) and most of the mall chain stores. The J.C. Penney store nearly pulled out as well, but it was later converted to an outlet store. Much of the mall sits empty, but a few local retailers make their home in the mall, most of which are liquidation outlet and dollar stores. As of last week, the mall was working on a huge renovation, but a fire broke out during reconstruction. In the meantime, a strip of big box stores anchored by Advance Auto Parts, Kohl's, and Menards (a regional home improvement store) has sprouted up down the street on Route 173.
Even so, the fate of Machesney Park mall is probably better than the fate of a number of malls in the exurban and inner suburban metropolitan areas, many of which have been reduced to one anchor tenant and a number of discount dollar and urban fashion (i.e., hip-hop) stores. And those disturbing developments pale in comparison to the fate of the Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago. The mall is best known for its appearance in the classic movie The Blues Brothers, in which Jake and Elwood Blues drive through the mall to escape the police. Interestingly enough, the mall had already been shuttered the year prior to filming that scene, and a number of plans were proposed to demolish the mall and build new shopping and retail developments. Those plans never developed, however, and the mall has since become overgrown with weeds and shrubbery which has grown to a small urban forest. The entrances which were originally boarded up have been broken into, and the interior has become overgrown with toxic mold. In addition, feral dogs and other animals have taken shelter in the former mall. A developer bought out the property in the early part of this decade and began a partial demolition of the mall, but they never finished it, apparently running out of money.
Which begs the question: what should become of these dead malls? Should they be razed and redeveloped as affordable housing? Should they be turned into lifestyle centers? In the cases of malls built in exurban developments, should they be razed and returned back to open land or sold back into farmland? And with the current economy accelerating the demise of big box stores, large tracts of strip malls are becoming empty. I personally in the last week went by a shuttered Circuit City, Home Depot Expo store, and Linens 'N Things, all within a couple of blocks of each other. Some would say that we need to develop those spaces into affordable housing, but then again others say that it makes no sense to redevelop those former shopping spaces if there is no manufacturing, commercial, or high tech industry jobs to support the local population which would frequent these shopping centers in the first place. And others say that with the development of online shopping sites like Amazon and eBay, the idea of the shopping mall is an artifact of the 20th century. Whatever happens, it looks like the suburban shopping mall will suffer the same fate as Detroit.