Dead malls: Half of America’s shopping centres predicted to close by 2030
The obituaries are being written for what has been an intrinsic part of American culture for half a century, as the country’s ubiquitous shopping malls face a slow, painful death.
As shopping and driving habits change, retailers are facing difficult times, and some have estimated that over the next 15 years half of America’s malls will die.
The shopping mall was born into a world where people were moving out of the cities and into a new, rich, indulgent life.
Amy Ginsberg’s teenage years centred around White Flint Mall in Maryland.
“There were glass elevators and marble and high-end stores,” she said.
“When I was in high school in the 70s and 80s there was nowhere else to go, really.
“The mall was where the stores were, it’s where the movie theatres were.
“You would just go to the mall and hang out.”
But White Flint’s doors closed this month.
Like so many malls in America it had been ‘dead’ for a while – the term used when a mall’s occupancy rate falls below 70 per cent and it is on a downward spiral.
Mark Hinshaw, an architect, city planner and author, has been watching the decline.
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