Americans Mourn the Death of Malls

Not too many years ago, there were quite a few bookshops in the part of Manhattan where we lived. I mean the old kind of bookshops, with creaking wooden floors, shelves weighed down with books and knowledgeable shop assistants who could keep track of the entire inventory.

Then came the big chain, with bookshops all over the country, which opened two shops of the larger variety — “super stores” — and before long, all the others had been pushed out of business.

Even though New York is a gigantic metropolis, many parts if it have had a sort of small-town character. Shoemakers, butchers, all sorts of craftsmen and small shops have existed side by side. They have been getting fewer and fewer, however. Instead, you see banks and large major brand outlets spreading out over half a block in spaces that previously housed three or four smaller shops.

When the big national franchises took over, many people were upset. You may call it nostalgia, but petitions were in circulation around the blocks. People signed them.

“It’ll be just like in the suburbs,” neighbors muttered angrily to each other in the lift. “Soon there’ll be a mall in every corner.”

During a visit to some friends, it came as a bit of a surprise that a similar kind of nostalgia is starting to spread in the suburban areas.

What they are mourning for there, however, is actually the mall — the impersonal shopping center that looks the same wherever you go in America, but that still served as a social gathering point. It turns out that the local mall is on its way out. Several of the shops have closed, leaving the place looking a bit shabby and desolate.

Malls all across America are facing a real crisis. There are too many of them, and the patterns of consumption have changed. Nowadays, many people prefer to shop at a small shop close to where they live. The competition from Internet shops is hard to tackle.

The mall has been so intimately connected to the modern suburban environment that it is possible to speak of the end of an era.

In Ohio, a well-frequented glassed-in mall is now being used as a greenhouse for growing vegetables and strawberries; another has been demolished to give room to a new park. In other places, large and relatively new shopping malls are being converted into offices or flats.

As it turns out, many adults are still missing their malls. It’s not just a question of the goods the shops were supplying. The nostalgia goes deeper than that. Some people see the mall rather as a central part of their upbringing — a gathering point after school, the place where everyone hung out.

Returning to Manhattan, we see that another bank is opening up a big office pn the next block. One of our neighbors notes the same thing and wonders why that is. After all, fewer and fewer people actually go to a bank office for private business that can be handled more easily through the internet. Despite that, there are now many more banks in the neighborhood compared to just a few years ago, while a number of smaller grocery shops have disappeared.

We both agree that it is a mystery. Or it might just be that the banks have so much money that they can afford to pay the office rent for the advertising space.

We are also wondering what will happen with the book shop — the only one left after the big chain closed down one of its two shops. The regret at the loss of the old, creaking bookshops is suddenly far away. Now, the question is whether the big, impersonal bookshop chain will be able to hold on.