America at the Mall: Exploring the Cultural Significance of Retail Utopias | Shopping Centers, Consumer Culture & American Lifestyle

You've seen the malls that used to be vibrant and crowded, now with empty stores and few customers. What happened? It started happening well before the financial bubble that burst in 2008. Is it some kind of shopping evolution, a survival of the fittest? Is it bad planning? Do people prefer big box stand-alone stores and online shopping?America at the Mall traces the history of the mall and its rise and what now seems to be its demise. It looks at how malls were planned and intended to be used and at how they actually have been used. It considers the community aspects of the suburban mall and looks to the future.The focus of the book is on the people who use the mall, whether to shop or to socialize. Mall designers and owners are largely concerned with the mall as a way to generate revenue, but people who use a suburban mall treat it as a community gathering place as much as a shopping destination.It appears that some malls are doomed, but others seem to be making a comeback. The book cites examples and case studies of malls. Some have seen a steady decline, but others have been repurposed as medical malls or as mixed use centers with apartments and public libraries in addition to shops. Some malls are moving away from the suburbs back to downtowns.A very readable and thought-provoking book.Table of Contents1. The Birth of the Mall2. Suburbia and the American Dream3. The Decline of Downtown4. The Mall and Religion5. Main Street6. Teens and the Mall7. Senior Citizens and the Mall8. The Mall as "Public" Space9. The Mall and the Environment10. Dawn of the Dead Mall11. The Rise of the Big Boxes12. Regional Mall Case Studies13. Case Studies: Super-Regional Malls, Lifestyle Centers, and Hybrids14. New Urbanism and the Death of the Urban Mall15. The Future of Public Space in America