Detroit-Area Shopping Center Goes From Nation’s Oldest Mall To Nation’s Newest Dead Mall – Consumerist

Detroit-Area Shopping Center Goes From Nation’s Oldest Mall To Nation’s Newest Dead Mall

I wonder whether the advent of social media and the smart phone has prefigured the death of shopping malls. In the late 20th century, malls represented a primary medium of socialization and communication for tweens and teens. Now they are only good for shopping, and they seem to be out of synch with society there as well: (1) malls rarely contain outlets with low prices, despite a struggling, cost-conscious middle class; (2) bricks-and-mortar shopping is losing ground to online retailers. Faced with competition from cost-cutters and cyber retailers, and having lost their cachet for youth socialization, can malls even survive?