shop talk
ZEENAT MOORAD: Bell tolls as malls pall
Over the past 10 years 'the death of the American mall' has gone from hyperbole to reality
Dan Bell, an American producer and filmmaker, has created a brilliant (and depressing) YouTube series on dead malls in the US. In dystopian ode to retail, he visits derelict shopping malls across the mid-Atlantic and gives a guided tour, covering mall history and demise. Each episode features a different centre — he talks about when and by whom it was built, who the anchor tenants were and what it was that caused said mall to drift into the abyss.Yes, there are plenty of dried up fountains and escalators that have ground to a halt. And it’s twelve minutes of your life you’ll never get back, but bear with me. Over the past 10 years, “the death of the American mall”, has gone from hyperbole to reality. Retail analyst Jan Rogers Kniffen last year said that about one third of US malls will shut their doors in the coming years. In 2016, there were roughly 1,100 enclosed malls in the US. He predicts that of the 400 or so that remain, about 250 “will thrive” and “the rest will continue to ...
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