New York Times: Our Love Affair with Malls is On the Rocks

I love it when the mainstream media catches up [Stuff I've Been Negative on Since Fall 2007] .... thankfully, we'll be using a few generation's money to bail out mall developers sometime in 2009. Another God given right for Americans - a mall must be located with 10 miles of each non rural human. Never mind that we have 6x more retail space per capita than every other country - send the taxpayers dollars in! [Jan 13: Bailout Nation Continues in Commercial Real Estate Land - "Lemme In on that Money"] [Dec 22: Wall Street Journal - Property Developers Ask for Government Bailouts]

An inspired web citizen has started http://deadmalls.com/
With this handy feature you can see the dead mall watch list in your own state.... lovely. http://deadmalls.com/features.html

New York Times: Our Love Affair with Malls is On the Rocks

• .... convenient starting point for rethinking the 50-year marriage between the American shopper and the American mall.
• Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the crux of the problem: We are reliably informed that whatever part of the economic crisis can’t be pinned on Wall Street — or on mortgage-related financial insanity — can be pinned on consumers who overspent. But personal consumption amounts to some 70 percent of the American economy. So if we don’t spend, we don’t recover. Fiscal health isn’t possible until money is again sloshing into cash registers, including those at this mall and every other retailer.
• In other words, shopping was part of the problem and now it’s part of the cure. And once we’re cured, economists report, we really need to learn how to save, which suggests that we will need to quit shopping again. So the mall we married has become the toxic spouse we can’t quit, though we really must quit, but just not any time soon.
• “I feel a need to get out there and do the mall thing, because I don’t want the mall to disappear,” says Cookie Tomlinson, who is visiting from Maryland and sits on a bench next to her son near Lego Park. (how... generous) “It’s a social experience, being with the grandkids, watching them interact,” she says. (hmm... wonder how grandparents interacted pre-mall...hmm.... certainly there must of been no interaction)
• THERE are roughly 1,500 malls in the United States, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, many of them ailing, some of them being converted into office buildings, and others closing their doors for good. (yes, because we need more empty office buildings... )
• IF we were actually in couples therapy with the mall, we’d have to confess to something: We have changed, not the mall. The economic crisis has caused shoppers to go into an essentials-only mode. But the mall has never trafficked in essentials.
• “You’d be amazed at how many people are returning things now,” Mr. Classen adds. “I’m going to have to start enforcing my return policy because — well, look at this.”

Much of the rest of the story is how Mall of America in Minneapolis is able to buck the trend (they claim 2% growth while individual retailers inside the mall doubt that) ... but after all it's a tourist attraction ;)

Only 5 more months until the "2nd half 2009" recovery commences.

[Jan 23: Forbes.com - Where You Won't Shop in 2009]
[Jan 12: Wall Street Journal - Wake of Bankruptcy Filings Expected from Retailers in Wake of Holidays]
[Dec 29, 2008: What Happens if America Returns to a Historical Savings Rate?]
[Dec 18, 2008: CNNMoney: The Dead Mall Problem]
[Nov 27, 2008: AP - Malls, Hotels Next Victims in New Mortgage Crisis]
[Oct 18, 2008: CNNMoney: Mall's Demise Could Doom Communities]
[Sep 20, 2008: US News & World Report - The End of the Shopaholic Nation?]
[Jul 21, 2008: Add Mervyn's to our Growing Litany of Retailers Headed to the Great Sunset]
[Jul 5, 2008: Bloomberg: Teenagers Skip $50 Jeans in Squeeze of Gas, Job Shortage])
[Apr 11, 2008: This Day in Bankruptcies - Another Airline and our First Major Retailer]