I understand the sentiment, but malls are cool, they are great place to hang out with plenty of things to do. And people don’t need to worry about weather conditions, don’t need to drive (assuming you can go to the mall via transportation).
I don’t know why North America decided strip mall with oversized parking (most strip malls literally have more space for cars than for people, which is kind of ridiculous IMO) is better than traditional mall.
Because rents at malls started to go up, and urban sprawl meant people lived further further away from the malls, making them less convenient to get to.
So, fewer people are showing up, choosing not to travel as far, or to shop online instead, while rents grow. This pushes retailers out, and robs the malls themselves of the resources or motivation to pay for maintenance.
We saw over the pandemic that commercial landlords were unwilling to give clients breaks on rent, and so a lot of businesses closed. Around here, at least, many of those locations are still vacant, because the demand for rent now doesn’t account for the lack of it later.
So, you know, fundamentally the same thing happening at Reddit.
I understand the sentiment, but malls are cool, they are great place to hang out with plenty of things to do. And people don’t need to worry about weather conditions, don’t need to drive (assuming you can go to the mall via transportation).
I don’t know why North America decided strip mall with oversized parking (most strip malls literally have more space for cars than for people, which is kind of ridiculous IMO) is better than traditional mall.
Because rents at malls started to go up, and urban sprawl meant people lived further further away from the malls, making them less convenient to get to.
So, fewer people are showing up, choosing not to travel as far, or to shop online instead, while rents grow. This pushes retailers out, and robs the malls themselves of the resources or motivation to pay for maintenance.
We saw over the pandemic that commercial landlords were unwilling to give clients breaks on rent, and so a lot of businesses closed. Around here, at least, many of those locations are still vacant, because the demand for rent now doesn’t account for the lack of it later.
So, you know, fundamentally the same thing happening at Reddit.