The Rise And Fall Of The Mall

[Music] this is what many of america's malls look like today empty eerie dead and while the pandemic has most people avoiding indoor gathering spaces social distancing is not what emptied out the mall this footage is from 2018. [Music] for decades the mall was both an economic and social hub and for many a way of life now many malls in the united states have either collapsed or are on the verge so how did we go from this to this the story of the mall begins in the 1950s when america was experiencing an unprecedented economic boom the middle class had more money to spend than ever before and they were spending it on houses and cars along with this came eisenhower's federal aid highway act which meant that people could drive to their jobs in the cities while living in a new kind of development the suburbs suburban populations rose astronomically but they lacked what sociologist ray oldenburg called third places under this model home is the first place where you live the second place is the workplace and third places are the vital spaces where people go to exchange ideas form relationships and create communities this could be a park a bar or in today's times social media platforms in other words the third place is a place to hang out enter victor gruen a man who had later become the king of retail for the era gruen who ironically was a staunch socialist had already made a name for himself in america designing boutique shops and storefronts but now wanted to create something far more ambitious an indoor downtown and what would prove to be his boldest and most enduring project yet grew and set about designing the mall on october 8th 1956 america's first indoor mall the southdale center in adina minnesota opened its doors like no building ever constructed before the south dell center not only had shops but fountains art installations a bird sanctuary and a sprawling courtyard all within a single indoor complex the mall received mostly rave reviews deeming it an attraction on par with disneyland which had just opened a year earlier in 1955. walt disney himself even cited gruen as his main influence for the ideas behind epcot with southdale all over the news everyone wanted to go to the mall malls began springing up in every american suburb along with large shopping center mall hybrids and everything in between by 1960 just four years after gruen's first mall there were 4 500 large shopping complexes in the united states which averages to at least three new shopping centers opening every day by 1975 malls and shopping centers accounted for 33 percent of all retail sales in america but gruen's utopian vision for the mall had not been realized cheap food courts were installed where courtyards were supposed to be instead of cosmopolitan communities developers often surrounded malls with enormous parking lots and suburban housing projects exactly what grune was trying to thwart whereas the mall was designed to be the communal remedy for suburban individualism it instead became its most potent catalyst it's mall madness a new shop till you drop game that really talks and the 1980s began the mall's golden age [Music] i hate working the theater all the actions on the other side of the wall shopping complexes continued to build at a rate of over 1 000 per year and in 1986 consumer reports named the shopping mall alongside the birth control pill antibiotics and the personal computer one of the top 50 wonders that has revolutionized the lives of consumers movies board games and even concert tours all centered around the mall 80s teenagers even looked at the mall as a place to which they could escape and socialize as was epitomized in the cult classic movie mall rats i love the smell of commerce in the morning the american mall would reach its peak in 1992 with its final evolution the mega mall fittingly in the same state as america's first mall the mall of america in bloomington minnesota spans a whopping 5.6 million square feet with over 500 stores a theme park with 27 rides an aquarium a wedding chapel and a movie theater the mega mall was immensely profitable reports showed that consumers were 50 more likely to buy something at an attraction-filled mega mall than at a regular mall leading to several more mega malls being built across the 50 states but mega mall's gargantuan size coupled with an unsustainable rate of construction would lead to the collapse of the mall itself although thousands of malls of all different shapes and sizes were built in the latter half of the 20th century the basic maul layout had remained the same since 1956 two large department stores at either end connected by smaller shops in between the bookending department stores are known as anchor stores and serve as the main attractions for the rest of the mall with so many malls being built in close proximity to one another the newer malls would often poach the department stores from the older ones nearby stores like macy's or sears would relocate to bigger more popular roller coaster riding mall locations and the older malls without their anchors would be left to drift away and drown as the 2000s progressed consumer habits shifted away from the department store altogether macy's for instance has been steadily closing stores since 2005 most of them in malls department store sized vacancies are difficult to refill and with other better malls often nearby there is little that can be done to save a failing mall which is why hundreds of malls have already been pronounced dead the dead mall has even become its own aesthetic capturing the imaginations of several internet photographers and filmmakers the 2017 credit suisse report estimated that one in four u.s malls would close by 2022 as foot traffic declined developers believed the future of the mall to be less about shopping and more about the extravagant experiences offered by the biggest mega malls bowling alleys laser tag go-karts and other activities that could only be found outside the house investors were hopeful that this would be achieved with the creation of the american dream mega mall in east rutherford new jersey opened in 2019 this behemoth houses not only a theme park but also a water park an ice rink and an indoor skiing complex but in a world of social distancing even america's most spectacular malls are floundering as of june 2020 the mall of america was unable to meet its billion dollar mortgage payments for the second straight month and the american dream had laid off 100 employees will malls ever recover their mainstay status in american culture or will we look to new types of third places in our post-pandemic future only time will tell but one thing is certain there is plenty of space for something new [Music] we reached out to the mall of america and the american dream mega mall but receive no response [Music] you

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 1,178,618

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, mall, retail, shopping, consumer, economy, mall of america, american dream, department stores, macys, sears

Id: KqLsC4CtekY

Length: 7min 50sec (470 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/MrPicklePop]

It's not the pandemic that's causing everything to crumble, it's the massive amount of debt that needs to be serviced. The debt bubble

[u/its_whot_it_is]

I havnt watched it. But I for one welcome the fall of a mall