Great journal theme. I live less than a mile from Northwest Plaza, a suburban St. Louis mall that finally sputtered out of existence in 2006. When Northwest Plaza opened in 1963, it was the largest mall in the state of Missouri and 27th largest mall in the United States with 210 stores. It was a real showcase for commerce. Back in the those days, people would bring their families to the mall and spend the entire day shopping.
I think online commerce killed a lot of the monster malls, here in the Midwest. Most people have less disposable income and we never fully recovered from the Bush recessions of the early 2000s. Kids stopped hanging out at malls and stayed home, played computer games and began building their network of friends on social websites, instead of going to the mall to meet members of their peer group.
I stopped going to malls because mall shopping became an expensive and time consuming way to purchase things. I purchase nearly everything (except for groceries) on the internet because prices are cheaper, even with the added shipping charges.
With internet commerce, I can sit at home in my pajamas and purchase an item in a matter of 3 minutes, instead of getting dressed, driving in my car to a mall, finding a parking place, trekking to the right mall store, making the purchase, trekking back out to the car, and driving back home... spending 1-2 hours of my time to purchase the same item that I can purchase on an online website in 3 minutes, at a price that's 30% cheaper than the retail price at the mall.
__________________
There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt
|