That is how I felt at my local mall a few years ago during Christmas season… it was soooo blighted. The floors were not polished, there was not the atmosphere one who grew up in mall culture from the 80s during Christmas that would be accustomed to… I mean, half the doors didn’t work automatically like they used to and half the shops were empty.
Our Aldis here are either stand-alone or adjacent to a stripmall.
We have a megamall in our region that a lot of people go to but our local suburban malls are all pretty much dead and in transition. The one closest to me is slated to be developed into a mixed used residential property with apartments/condos, shops, gym, other businesees, restaurants. This is mostly due to a large chip fab manufacturing project planned to be constructed in the next 2 years. There will be demand for housing and other services so the Town/County is interested in removing any barriers for that kind of development.
2 years ago, I went into that mall during Christmas season and it was very very sad looking.
I just listened to a news/information show regarding studies done on millennial and GenZ that found 4/10 of this cohort also worked a side gig in order to hedge against layoffs. Often, many of these side gigs are not glam type… like influencers etc. Many of these jobs are like working in service – nannys, retail, food service – stuff that can’t be replaced by AI or a remote offshored employee. So this report was on NPR today…
This along with the elimination of USAID should disqualify the orange gorilla from any peace prize .