I'm very excited to announce the first column of my "Decay Theory" series for Atlas Obscura. This one's about the death of the suburban American shopping mall. It's easy to write off the closure of malls as the result of online shopping - but their fate was likely sealed years before Amazon became the brick and mortar shredding juggernaut it is today. Here's the link! https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-life-and-death-of-the-suburban-american-mall
@AbandonedAmerica This is a very original article and topic. Thank you and congratulations.
These abandoned temples of consumption should remind us about how the decadent economic system we live in makes everything disposable, even multimillion dollar shopping infrastructure.
@AbandonedAmerica Excellent piece! Looking at your photos, I'm thinking about the difficulties of dealing with (recycling?) all of that concrete, steel, glass, drywall, and flooring.
@AbandonedAmerica I did a cross-country motorcycle trip in '92, well before online shopping, and near-empty malls were a common sight along the way. I attributed it to the recession, but they never really recovered.
Do you know the jewelry store threshold? Shoe stores are the second clue but at some point there are just one too many jewelry stores and the mall is doomed. I noted this in the early 90s when the fancy malls you mention started turning up just within the "too far to drive to" limit
@AbandonedAmerica I love your writing so far - excellent. I will go ahead and buy a copy of your book.
Love the topic.
And FWIW, it was not "our mall", it was "the mall" 😎
@AbandonedAmerica My personal memories of malls is probably best represented by Spencer Gifts. That place was wild, and only available in a mall.
One thing that you did not cover was the extent to which, while malls sought to create the experience of a community space or marketplace, young people found themselves unwelcome unless they were there to spend money. I feel like that was a big part of the demise too, in addition to all the things you mention.
@jab01701mid thanks! Yes, most malls were just "The Mall", it's true. As for young patrons, I guess that depended on the place but I got into that more in the Randall Park Mall podcast/essay. I already went way over my word count for this piece so there's only so much that can be included. PS, Operation Mindcrime is a great album!
@AbandonedAmerica I grew up in Medina, Ohio, and the Randall Park Mall sounds familiar - I may have been there once or twice before 6th grade. I was too young to cause any trouble.
@AbandonedAmerica Also, love your "no AI scraping" note.
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@AbandonedAmerica Hey, I’m a fan of your work and enjoyed the blog. You write “It’s hard to think of any comparable social institution that cost so much and covered so much physical space and then imploded so quickly.” I wonder if you’ve looked into banks. Online banking is obsoleting a lot of physical banks. Branches have unique features like vaults, vacuum tube systems for drive throughs, safe deposit box rooms and so on. Many are shutting and they’re similarly ubiquitous but on a smaller scale. Of course many are full of rich architecture too. Seems like another source of abandoned buildings that were once important.
@paco I've been to several really impressive banks, and agree that they (along with many other physical spaces in general) are waning. I'd argue that malls represent a much larger investment in terms of space and money even compared to the most grandiose banks, but believe me, if there's any type of building going under, I want to be there to record it. Thanks for reading the article! Remind me and I'll post my favorite abandoned bank vault tomorrow
@AbandonedAmerica I've followed your podcast and web site for awhile, and your posts here more recently. I'm so happy to see you're writing for a place like Atlas Obscura too. I think you have a unique gift and insight, and I'm excited for you and excited to see where you take this work.
@abucci thanks so much, I appreciate it. I have to be honest, I'm not entirely confident about my writing (photos are much easier for me to see whether I got what I wanted or not) but I am excited about it too. I think in the long term it's good for me to be doing more projects with other outlets rather than just sticking to AA, keeps me limber 😊
@AbandonedAmerica we need a place to be a flaneur! Per Walter Benjamin's Arcades:
"revitalizing the arcade is not just a nostalgic yearning for the past. It is a recognition that in the heart of our fast-paced, technology-driven world, we have a profound need for places that embody beauty, history, connection, and calm. It is a tribute to our urban soul."
@AbandonedAmerica Some cracking Liminal shots there, and your words on the importance of happy childhood memories of malls (or as we call them 'Shopping Centres') rang true.
My wife and I often have dreams set in the shopping centres of our youth, I'm sure we are not alone.
@AbandonedAmerica Well, I liked your photos, but I was very sorry to see the highly offensive anti-LGBTQ+ ad at the end. I'll attach here with a content warning. (You may have no control over the ads that Atlas Obscura is serving, but you deserve to be aware of the poison that's standing beside your work.)
@sciencewrighter well, that's really gross and upsetting. I don't even have ads showing when I load the page at all. I am sure that AO wouldn't like these sorts of shirts advertised on their page either.
@sciencewrighter PS, a good tip when you see ads like this in a website you know wouldn't like them:
Click on the ad. It costs the company displaying it money.
Copy the URL and take a screenshot of the ad
Contact the website itself directly with both the URL and screenshot.
Most ad companies will let you blacklist advertisers but in a case like this, where I have no idea what the URL even is, there's not much they can do. Not my site so I have no say anyway but that does help.
@sciencewrighter@AbandonedAmerica I didn’t see that ad, but I think it's definitely worth reporting to AO if you have the time. They can block specific Google ads, I believe, and it would be interesting to hear what they have to say about it
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