Is The Mall Dead?

I think the issue with malls is they attrack a "hang out" environment. Which is intended for people to spend money. However thats not always the end result. I find at some malls it has the element of gangs and drugs and no one feels at home or safe. If these people where to get <a href="http://www.family-drug-intervention.net">alcohol addiction intervention</a> maybe this wouldnt be such an issue. granted there are alot of people out there without these problems. Others need a reality check to make these public environments safe for everyone including our kids. I know I dont feel personaly safe in most public environments due to the unperdictable and normaly dangerous behavior that these abuser eminate. I have lived in N.J. and I know how these malls attract such a crowd.

I think the problem is not that people don't want to shop at the mall, it is that so many people are sick of the mall element. Within the last month, my local mall has had one shooting, on November 25th, & then a security guard was stabbed, almost a week later. When you go to the mall on a Saturday, it is filled with teenagers that aren't buying anything. They need to charge an admission fee, to enter the mall....something that would be refunded with a purchase, at one of the stores. Right now, it is a zoo & sometimes a very dangerous zoo. The same people that are milling around, not spending any money, are the very same people who are most likely to be loud, obnoxious, violent, or shop lift; the teenagers.

Good riddance; the mall has killed most American cities and made consumer robots out of many American families. From Boston to L.A. these mall's are offering the same "boring" message, taking away any personal initiative and fattening many in their cheap food courts!

The economy team needs to look at crisis areas and addresses them head-on one-by-one.

To deal with mortgage default crisis, the government can create a system or agency that allows government to do the following without red tape:
1) Pay off mortgage in for-closures to banks by BONDS
2) Create a BUFFER PERIOD during which these bought-out for-closed property can either: A) be REFINANCED with fixed low interest and payment level that the current owner can manage in the long run or B) be REUSED OR RESOLD while the current owner be discharged of the current mortgage without affecting personal credit history
3) Provide DEFAULT INSURANCE for the restructured mortgages by government's own mortgage default insurance company or agency

For near-bankrupt companies with plummeted stocks; the GOVERNMENT CAN TAKE OVER ONE-THIRD OF SHARES, allows financing for employees to own one-third; and leave one-third for the public

Building roads and promoting green energy are for long term. The more urgent need is to make industries competitive. For instance, it is not efficient for many countries to produce whole vehicles. All automakers are seeing sales plummet due to current global crisis. It is more efficient and competitive for a country to produce an automobile part that is cheapest for the required qualities; such as auto body in the USA, engine in Japan or Germany, upholstery in China. SPECIALIZATION needs to go hand-in-hand with global free-trade because it allows all to grow without impeding competitors??? growth.

The election is not over. We have taken a vow not to spend one cent on anything we don't have to buy such as food or gas until the Obama/Biden administration is sworn in. Bush???s so called rebates of our own future tax refunds and his pleas to go shopping show the importance of consumer spending to the legacy of Republican economics. Bush hijacked the country for the benefit of the wealthy for eight years. Let the wealthy keep the Bush consumer economy going for the next two months until the Republicans are flushed in disgrace. Learn about and patronize your smaller locally owned businesses and pay cash so it's under the radar of statistics. We're hoarding all our discretionary spending until the Obama Administration when the recovery can begin.

The election is not over yet. We have taken a vow not to spend one cent on anything we don't have to buy such as food or gas until the Obama/Biden administration is sworn in. Bush???s so called rebates of our own future tax refunds and his pleas to go shopping show the importance of consumer spending to the legacy of Republican economics. Bush hijacked the country for the benefit of the wealthy for eight years. Let the wealthy keep the Bush consumer economy going for the next two months until the Republicans are flushed in disgrace. Learn about and patronize your smaller locally owned businesses and pay cash so it's under the radar of statistics. We're hoarding all our discretionary spending until the Obama Administration when the recovery can begin.

American malls are not dead. Or dying. They are simply taking a much needed rest...

Malls have become so boring and homogenized. Almost all of them are all the same no matter where you go, and they feel so soulless and dead now. I'd rather just go to Kohl's when I need clothes, now. Their prices and sales are fantastic and I don't have to deal with traipsing around amongst gaggles of teenyboppers, paying way too much, and seeing the same boring stores and crappy fast food stands everywhere. I want uniqueness, variety and bargains. And more global consciousness and some delicious, healthy food choices would be nice, too. Give me that, and I'm there.

I used to like to go to malls when we had a lot of different stores here in So. Cal. like Bullock's, Buffum's, Robinson's-May and The Broadway. They all had different merchandise in different price ranges and May Company always had fabulous sales. Now, all we have is Macy's and Nordstrom. Nordstrom is nice but generally too expensive and I can't stand Macy's anymore, ever since they gobbled up Robinson's-May and Marshall Field's in my hometown of Chicago, completely disregarding residents' desire to keep the historical landmark's name, at least, intact. And they're too expensive, too.

There's no mention about the advent of online Internet shopping or big box stores like Best Buy. Unlike the author, I don't beieve that malls are dying due to a wave of modern frugailty. Consumers just moved their shopping elsewhere to cyberspace and big-box strip malls.

LWhat makes me mad, is the car industry wants bailed out, but can afford three jets worth 36 million a piece, at the cost of 20,ooo for the leaders to be flowen to congress in D.C. If they can't cut out these millions of wasteful money, what makes them think that they can use 25 billion senseably?

Wall Mart killed the malls in the smaller cities already. I think we may see a come back of the malls in the smaller cities , as the economy down sizes with the recession on the way. I think they are wrong. Less money means shop at smaller , less expensive locations. even smaller grocery store. Our small town stores are doing pretty good. People staying home to shop at home now. This message I think is resinating with this economy to keep our small towns and smaller cities alive and well.

Malls are sterile and boring, all the same, and expensive to boot.

Nice anarchist arguments...

Capitalism is enpowering the poor with many high quality affordably priced goods...

Small stores always have higher prices,...

I will miss the death of the normal, ordinary, pleasant American shopping mall. I liked going to our relatively local mall, had some decent experiences working there at a few points, took some nice art classes and just generally really had a good time. But that was at a relatively small, clean mall with good stores and a fair amount of identity in the community.

I will in no way, shape, or form bemoan the death of the five-block three-story artificial megamall, where culture has been replaced by consumption and conformity and buying-spree unhealthy-food stupor.

Westfield bought a lot of the malls in L.A. (an Australian mega-mall management company - why on Earth do they own all our shopping malls?) recently. A lot of them have lost a fair amount of character, in my opinion. I don't particularly enjoy going to most of them anymore.

The truth is just that malls have massively overbuilt. If malls were a small city block long and had maybe twice the stores of a comparable commercial block, they'd be doing fine. But these massive, climate-controlled, energy-sucking, shiny-scrubbed, high-traffic-required malls where mass-produced artificial culture rules the day and manufactured pop acts give huge concerts are a detriment to our national cultural identity and creativity and culture.

There are some good malls left, many not owned by a massive management company on another continent. Sadly, Westfield bought my old mall (it still retains a fair amount of its charm, luckily). I really think we should shop at the nice ones and just let the others die a massive shuddering death. The worse malls are arguably an urban blight in many ways.

And in no way does the American megamall deserve a bailout. If they start asking for one...well...I don't know what to do about that. It will do no benefit to our economy.