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The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

strongtowns.org

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Re: The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

#71

Post by jfengel »

enriquto wrote: post #62
jcims wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for the snark, it wasn’t necessary. I’m not particularly persuaded but i didn’t have to be a dick about it. :)

Ha! didn't notice the snark on my first read. What can I say? Just come here and take a walk ;) EDIT: no need to take a plane... if you need some proof, look at this google maps/street view link: https://goo.gl/maps/iDirDFH16d8xMvwx9 All the things that you mention on your "snarky" message can be indeed found on the couple of pedestrian streets that you see here. Except for the cinema, but there is a theatre (now clo…

How are those local stores holding up against online delivery? I can't see Amazon displacing the boulangerie, patisserie, charcuterie, boucherie, etc. in those small towns. But I could easily see people being willing to order their socks and hammers and such online.

I love those little towns and have dreamed of retiring to one. (One thing I need to figure out how to say in French is "How is the Internet there?"... though I suppose these days I could even get one of those nearly-dead little villages they sell so cheaply and bring a Starlink.)

Re: The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

#72

Post by enriquto »

Kihashi wrote: post #64
enriquto wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we could better utilize malls by making top floors of condos You are a few steps away to rediscovering the European city (if by an extremely convoluted way).

American Shopping malls were modeled on European town centers. They just got a little lost as the concept was copied. But mixed use development is becoming more common in the US. I know of 2 or 3 mixed use developments that have opened up around my city. > What was new about it was that it was an entirely enclosed system of shops with no exterior windows and a climate-controlled interior. This was a particularly good…

> American Shopping malls were modeled on European town centers. They just got a little lost as the concept was copied.

This is fascinating. Do you have a source? It is a prominent example of cargo culting in a "civilized" country.

Re: The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

#73

Post by lazerpants »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #42
stormbrew wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, part of why that is the case is that walmart itself depresses wages. It comes to town, undercuts other businesses, those businesses close, people need jobs, they go to work at walmart (possibly at a loss of income but probably a loss of hours even if not), and then they can't afford to shop anywhere but walmart anymore. And the cycle continues. It's not like they're doing this in a snidely whiplash scheme-y s…

As someone who makes more than enough money to not have to shop at Walmart, I still shop at Walmart. Even brand name food items will be 20% cheaper than most grocery stores (Aldi's excluded). And meat is just incredibly cheap, $1.78/lb for boneless chicken breast? Yea, I'm gonna keep shopping at Walmart. Just because I have money to burn doesn't mean I want to burn it overpaying for basic things.

Right, but at some point you have to question why these things are so cheap. What conditions are you helping to perpetuate by buying inexpensive clothes and meat?

Not that you're obligated to spend your money differently than you do. But this speaks to the country's yawning divide between red/blue that some of us choose to spend supporting local economies, buying ethically sourced goods, and generally trying to reduce the negative externalities of our lives. Meanwhile, other people don't want to worry about that, which is fair, but I don't know how culturally sustainable it is for groups to be polarizing at each end of that continuum.

Re: The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

#74

Post by lazerpants »

cycomanic wrote: post #44

I think this is a very US perspective. In the town where I grew up in Germany they created a pedestrian zone downtown when I was a teenager. There was a lot of protests from businesses saying that people would drive to malls in the outskirts because they can't drive to the shops anymore. The exact opposite happened, if you look at the city centre it's busy every day and absolutely jam packed on nice days (except for…

To be fair, there's probably an efficient frontier problem in pedestrianizing neighborhoods. If you closed off the entirety of Manhattan to cars, it would probably destroy Manhattan, but if you closed off specific areas such that people could still move themselves and goods around the city, it would be much improved.

Re: The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

#75

Post by enriquto »

jfengel wrote: post #71
enriquto wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! didn't notice the snark on my first read. What can I say? Just come here and take a walk ;) EDIT: no need to take a plane... if you need some proof, look at this google maps/street view link: https://goo.gl/maps/iDirDFH16d8xMvwx9 All the things that you mention on your "snarky" message can be indeed found on the couple of pedestrian streets that you see here. Except for the cinema, but there is a theatre (now clo…

How are those local stores holding up against online delivery? I can't see Amazon displacing the boulangerie, patisserie, charcuterie, boucherie, etc. in those small towns. But I could easily see people being willing to order their socks and hammers and such online. I love those little towns and have dreamed of retiring to one. (One thing I need to figure out how to say in French is "How is the Internet there?"... th…

this is not really a "little town", it is well inside paris metro, the largest urban area in continental europe, home to 10 million people, and a major technology hub. You'll have your internet here.

Re: The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

#76

Post by 908B64B197 »

freeone3000 wrote: post #19
axaxs wrote: post #15

One interesting article I read but can't be bothered to find now mentioned how we could better utilize malls by making top floors of condos. It was such a simple but seemingly good suggestion. Already have huge amounts of parking, tons of floor area for convenience, and stores would change to those that better served the tenants. And as that happens, more people from outside would be incentivized to visit. Perhaps th…

Having residential above retail is super common in non-American cities. It works pretty well in Montreal -- condo buildings usually have a grocery store and coffee shop in the lobby, while a strip of three-story buildings might have two stories of residential above things like a collectibles store or a martial arts dojo, with a grocery store on the corner. The problem with doing this with malls is you have minimum qu…

In America too, just look at New York. SoHo comes to mind.

Re: The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

#77

Post by DIVx0 »

enriquto wrote: post #38
jcims wrote: post #7

This seems like a woefully incomplete analysis. The same basic evolution happened in manufacturing and for largely the same reasons. Boutique job shops replaced by industralized mass production facilities replaced by abstracted labor and infrastructure in offshore contracts. Boutique stores worked downtown because there was no better option, not because it was great. Who wants to drive downtown to get shoes or a tie?…

> Who wants to drive downtown to get shoes or a tie? I had a hard time understanding the meaning of this sentence, and its context. The idea of "driving downtown to go shopping" is backwards to me. You live downtown, and walk a few meters to the shop. Then I realized that you may be from the USA, where your cities seem to be turned inside out. You are indeed a funny country.

The town in this article is a small/medium sized town in rural central Minnesota. The majority of people in this area will live in the surrounding country side and the "down town" isn't much more than a few blocks of buildings and side streets straddling a major highway.

So for most people in the area, going anywhere besides a recreational walk, requires getting in a car.

I don't believe this situation is unique to United States with regards to similar towns.

Re: The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

#78

Post by bootlooped »

axaxs wrote: post #15

One interesting article I read but can't be bothered to find now mentioned how we could better utilize malls by making top floors of condos. It was such a simple but seemingly good suggestion. Already have huge amounts of parking, tons of floor area for convenience, and stores would change to those that better served the tenants. And as that happens, more people from outside would be incentivized to visit. Perhaps th…

It seems like the typical American shopping mall would need a lot of work to convert partially to residential. Most malls have virtually no exterior windows for one.

Re: The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

#79

Post by AnthonyMouse »

steveBK123 wrote: post #69
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Daylight requirements are a particular concern -- you can sell corners and edges, but you're left with a big space in the middle you can't use, unless you're willing to make the corner apartments expand that far. Or, since you're talking about the top floor, use skylights. You could even make it the top two floors, but each center unit is on both floors and has a "basement" without natural light. > Once you start d…

There are reasons for zoning requirements that skylights don't solve, and they are largely around egress. Some mall layouts may be conducive enough to having condos put on the top level, or one could design a modern mall for that now (I've seen a few). However retrofitting onto many of the 80s-90s era malls with huge floorplans is unlikely to be economically feasible.

Can you explain how the egress problem is supposed to work?

Suppose you have a giant square floor plan, and housing units like this:

  [01][02][03][04]

  [05][06][07][08]
  [09][10][11][12]

  [13][14][15][16]
Then units 01-04 and 13-16 are on the exterior of the building, units 05-12 are on the interior with skylights, and there are hallways between them as shown. Where is the egress problem?

Re: The reason the local mall is failing (2018)

#80

Post by hannasm »

enriquto wrote: post #62
jcims wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry for the snark, it wasn’t necessary. I’m not particularly persuaded but i didn’t have to be a dick about it. :)

Ha! didn't notice the snark on my first read. What can I say? Just come here and take a walk ;) EDIT: no need to take a plane... if you need some proof, look at this google maps/street view link: https://goo.gl/maps/iDirDFH16d8xMvwx9 All the things that you mention on your "snarky" message can be indeed found on the couple of pedestrian streets that you see here. Except for the cinema, but there is a theatre (now clo…

> walk less than 2km to the one in the next town

I think the distance between rural towns is generally more like 5-10km each direction in the parts of the US I am familiar with. 2km through a densely populated urban area is very different from 10km through the countryside too.

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