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The Fall of the Mall

I've seen bits of the new season of Netflix's Stranger Things recently. The series is set in 1980s America and follows these teenage friends with supernormal powers. Everything has a orangey-red haze and is shot to a backdrop of mock Girgio Moroder synth. For the characters, Starcourt Mall is the epicentre of their social lives - it's where they go to hang out, spot their crushes and refuel in the Scoops Ahoy ice cream parlour. The set is straight out of the catalogue of American malls complete with airy atrium, austere neon signs, a water feature and unquestionably fake vegetation scattered at various levels. You'd be forgiven for thinking that it's a good replica, but the titular Starcourt Mall is set in a largely derelict mall in Georgia called Gwinnett Place Mall.

The Starcourt Mall from Stranger Things 3

The show is an homage to the carefree '80s childhood where freedom was endowed by a bicycle and the back door was always left on the latch. It's also a nice tribute to the shopping malls of yore, given that Starcourt Mall is a relic of its era. Across the States, shopping malls have been vacated shop-by-shop often to the point where they are operating with only one large chain store. Some ghost malls have been entirely abandoned and left rot in decay, kind of grotesque theme-parks for photographers, vandals and drug dealers. Here's an incredibly anoraky website of abandoned shopping malls, if you'd like to enter a rabbit hole.

The abandoned Rolling Acres Mall in Ohio.

I've had a small fascination with abandoned malls. Their vastness and eerieness enthrals me and creeps me out in equal measure. It's like the Marie Celeste: the shop windows are decorated, the elevators are functioning, but the customers are nowhere to be seen. A scene typically awash with shoppers rushing around is uncharacteristically still. Ghost malls are the corpses of credit card consumerism.

Some of these malls fell on hard times since the 2008 crash. When the credit dried up, so did the retailers' trade. But a larger iceberg is on the horizon: online shopping. We've seen the once untouchable hallmarks of British retail such as Debenhams, House of Fraser and Marks and Spencer fall upon hard times. 5,300 US retailers have shut up shop this year alone. There's a generational shift too. Millennials are less concerned about amassing possessions (apparently - even though fast fashion seems to run through our veins) and more interested in having experiences.

As we course towards the iceberg retailers have been trying to set sail in a different direction, prioritising in-store experiences. Yummy-mummy yoga Mecca Lululemon runs free yoga classes in store and Nike, well... runs.

Lululemon's instore yoga
But there's another gaping flaw in the mall's business model which needs to be addressed. The relationship between the shopper and the mall is entirely transactional. There are scant places in shopping malls where tired shoppers can unwind, relax and socialise while crucially not reaching for their wallet. Every square inch of space is monetised, leaving hardly anywhere for customers to rest before being delivered the patronising blow: 'sorry sir, these seats are for paying customers only'.


We need to re-envisage shopping spaces. Malls should include social spaces and areas where customers can lounge without spending money. This includes libraries, spaces for community groups to come together, for sports activities and live entertainment like busking and comedy. But then they won't spend money with us at all?! I hear you cry, you greedy shopowner. Well, as explained above, nobody will be going to shopping centres at all in the next few years if we don't give them a reason to.

There has been a lot of talk about expanding Dundrum Town Centre, Dublin's largest shopping centre, and building two new shopping centres in Carrickmines / Cherrywood, two South Dublin suburbs. Is it all a fool's errand? If we don't re-imagine shopping spaces as leisure and community spaces, then we might have no choice but to tear down that Mall!

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