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Lessons from the golden age of the mall walkers

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Re: Lessons from the golden age of the mall walkers

#2
Our mall has 4 busses an hour and it is becoming a non-profit center as stores fade away, the Hospital moved in COVID testing and vaccination and will be moving in more medical officers, other kinds of NGOs such as toy banks are moving in. (E.g. there is no ‘toy store’ to compete with it, no ‘pet shop’ to compete with the SPCA, etc.

Re: Lessons from the golden age of the mall walkers

#6
post #5

For my wife its mostly about being able to walk in the air conditioning. Hot outside

There are plenty of locations that actually have reasonable parks and so forth where a lot of people just don't want to walk outside for a decent chunk of the year.

Re: Lessons from the golden age of the mall walkers

#7
The real lesson of mall walking is that it came about because in many places there's literally nowhere else you can walk. Non-Americans may be vaguely aware that America has a sickness of car dependency but may be unaware of the extent of it.

I present to you the 26 lane Katy Freeway in Houston, Texas [1].

Non-Americans may not realize just how large these cities are geographically. I believe one end of the Houston metro area to the other is almost as far as London to Birmingham.

Many Americans live in the suburbs. This is complete car dependence. Children in particular often can't go anywhere without being driven.

It's actually depressing what a soulless barren dystopia most of the US actually is.

[1]: https://charlesandcharles.co.uk/f/take-a-look-at-the-katy-fr...

Re: Lessons from the golden age of the mall walkers

#8

Our mall has 4 busses an hour and it is becoming a non-profit center as stores fade away, the Hospital moved in COVID testing and vaccination and will be moving in more medical officers, other kinds of NGOs such as toy banks are moving in. (E.g. there is no ‘toy store’ to compete with it, no ‘pet shop’ to compete with the SPCA, etc.

From what I've seen malls are consolidating. The good ones continue to do well and get even nicer, while all the others slowly die as people make the trek to the good mall. There is no room in the market for average.

It will be interesting to see what happens to them as they die, as they are quite unique pieces of real estate.

Re: Lessons from the golden age of the mall walkers

#9
post #7

The real lesson of mall walking is that it came about because in many places there's literally nowhere else you can walk. Non-Americans may be vaguely aware that America has a sickness of car dependency but may be unaware of the extent of it. I present to you the 26 lane Katy Freeway in Houston, Texas [1]. Non-Americans may not realize just how large these cities are geographically. I believe one end of the Houston m…

> Critics say that the road will simply attract more traffic, but the way in which it is managed means that traffic is dispersed and therefore means there is less congestion than your average motorway.

What's the incentive for a UK construction talent agency to defend it? I don't actually grok any road traffic science aside from repeatedly seeing induced demand[0] mentioned; is there any truth in that?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

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