the-economics-and-nostalgia-of-dead-malls OWINGS MILLS, Md. — Inside the gleaming mall here on the Sunday before Christmas, just one thing was missing: shoppers. The upbeat music of “Jingle Bell Rock” bounced off the tiles, and the smell of teriyaki chicken drifted from the food court, but only a handful of stores were open at the sprawling enclosed shopping center. A few visitors walked down the long hallways and peered through locked metal gates into vacant spaces once home to retailers like H&M, Wet Seal and Kay Jewelers. “It’s depressing,” Jill Kalata, 46, said as she tried on a few of the last sneakers for sale at the Athlete’s Foot, scheduled to close in a few weeks. The Owings Mills Mall is poised to join a growing number of what real estate professionals, architects, urban planners and Internet enthusiasts term “dead malls.” Continue reading the main story Share of malls with vacancy rates of 10 percent or higher (considered a sign of trouble) “It is very much a haves and have-nots situation,” said D. At Owings Mills, J.
Glocalization Glocalization, the simultaneous occurrence of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies in contemporary social, political, and economic systems. The term, a linguistic hybrid of globalization and localization, was popularized by the sociologist Roland Robertson and coined, according to him, by Japanese economists to explain Japanese global marketing strategies. The notion of glocalization represents a challenge to simplistic conceptions of globalization processes as linear expansions of territorial scales. Glocalization indicates that the growing importance of continental and global levels is occurring together with the increasing salience of local and regional levels. Tendencies toward homogeneity and centralization appear alongside tendencies toward heterogeneity and decentralization. But the notion of glocalization entails an even more radical change in perspective: it points to the interconnectedness of the global and local levels. Glocalization in a two-level system
A New Life for Dead Malls In case you haven’t heard, suburban malls are on the way out (sorry Paul Blart). Some have become abandoned wastelands popular for ruin porn. Others have been torn down and turned into industrial sites. According to Ellen Dunham-Jones, an architect and professor at Georgia Tech, there are about 1,200 enclosed malls in the United States, and about one-third of them are dead or dying. “The malls died for a reason,” she told me. As anchor brands such as JC Penney, Sears, and Macy's close stores and Americans show a preference for shopping online or in walkable urban centers, more malls are expected to close. But there is good news: In many areas of the country developers are finding new uses for dead malls. “Malls are being turned into medical centers, colleges, elementary schools, churches,” she said. The Highland Mall in Austin, Texas, for instance, was named one of "America’s Most Endangered Malls” by U.S. “What happens when a mall begins to deteriorate and no longer function as a mall?”
'Tourists go home, refugees welcome': why Barcelona chose migrants over visitors | Cities Early last year, around 150,000 people in Barcelona marched to demand that the Spanish government allow more refugees into the country. Shortly afterwards, “Tourists go home, refugees welcome” started appearing on the city’s walls; soon the city was inundated with protestors marching behind the slogans “Barcelona is not for sale” and “We will not be driven out”. What the Spanish media dubbed turismofobia overtook several European cities last summer, with protests held and measures taken in Venice, Rome, Amsterdam, Florence, Berlin, Lisbon, Palma de Mallorca and elsewhere in Europe against the invasion of visitors. Is it really the case that Barcelona would prefer to receive thousands of penniless immigrants rather than the millions of tourists who last year spent around €30bn in the city? In 2000 foreigners accounted for less than 2% of the population; a mere five years later, the figure was 15% (266,000). Public services are also feeling the strain.
Euclid Square Mall | Architectural Afterlife Euclid Square Mall – Abandoned? Or just an eerie reminder of how easily we forget? I wanted to post this here, before more lies begin to surface across the face of the Internet. This is Euclid Square Mall – it’s not abandoned, though it has been re-purposed in ways. Though it has indeed been a dead mall since the 90s, these eerily quiet, seemingly abandoned halls are still filled with the chorus ensembles of their equally as eerie, almost post-apocalyptic church groups. In 1997, rumors erupted when talk started that Kaufmann’s would soon be closed, being dragged into expansion plans for a separate shopping center. By 2004, vendors by the name of Outlets USA took over the former Kauffman’s space, moving in if only for a short couple of years. That same year, a proposal was made to include this vacated space as part of a reconstruction project, dealing with a nearby abandoned industrial park. I remember first visiting this mall, waiting for the final store to close. Like this:
The end of global travel as we know it: an opportunity for sustainable tourism Saturday, March 14 2020, is “The Day the World Stopped Travelling”, in the words of Rifat Ali, head of travel analytics company Skift. That’s a little dramatic, perhaps, but every day since has brought us closer to it being reality. The COVID-19 crisis has the global travel industry – “the most consequential industry in the world”, says Ali – in uncharted territory. Nations are shutting their borders. Associated hospitality, arts and cultural industries are threatened. But is it? Considering human activities need to change if we are to avoid the worst effects of human-induced climate change, the coronavirus crisis might offer us an unexpected opportunity. Ali, like many others, wants recovery, “even if it takes a while to get back up and return to pre-coronavirus traveller numbers”. But rather than try to return to business as usual as soon as possible, COVID-19 challenges us to think about the type of consumption that underpins the unsustainable ways of the travel and tourism industries.
Are Malls Over? When the Woodville Mall opened, in 1969, in Northwood, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, its developers bragged about the mall’s million square feet of enclosed space; its anchor tenants, which included Sears and J. C. Penney; and its air-conditioning—seventy-two degrees, year-round! Two years later, the Toledo Blade published a front-page article about the photo-takers and people-watchers who gathered around the mall’s marble fountain, “that gushing monument to big spending and the shopping spree.” This week, Woodville is being torn down. Part of what’s hurting the mall, obviously, is that, increasingly, people are shopping online. It’s worth noting that Caruso has a good reason to pitch the reinvention of malls to developers: outdoor malls are his company’s focus. Reinventing malls—and the stores that they house—might not be as straightforward as it seems. But, like Gap, Taubman sees its future in the two malls that it’s developing in China and in a third mall, in South Korea.
Globalisation has made the world a better place | Jim O'Neill | Business I was recently in beautiful Chile for a Futures Congress, and I had a chance to travel south to the very tip of Latin America. I also recently made a BBC radio documentary called Fixing Globalisation, in which I criss-crossed the UK in search of ideas for improving certain aspects of it and discussed topical issues with well-known experts. In both cases, I saw things that convinced me that it is past time for someone to come to globalisation’s defence. Chile today is Latin America’s richest country, with per capita GDP of about $23,000 – similar to that of central European countries. For example, when I led a review on antimicrobial resistance, I learned that copper has powerful antibacterial properties and is an ideal material for use in healthcare facilities where bacteria often spread. Chile is also a storehouse of knowledge for managing earthquakes and tsunamis. This will not happen without globalisation. Policymakers can take action to alleviate anxieties about globalisation.
The death of the American mall | Cities It is hard to believe there has ever been any life in this place. Shattered glass crunches under Seph Lawless’s feet as he strides through its dreary corridors. Overhead lights attached to ripped-out electrical wires hang suspended in the stale air and fading wallpaper peels off the walls like dead skin. Lawless sidesteps debris as he passes from plot to plot in this retail graveyard called Rolling Acres Mall in Akron, Ohio. The shopping centre closed in 2008, and its largest retailers, which had tried to make it as standalone stores, emptied out by the end of last year. When Lawless stops to overlook a two-storey opening near the mall’s once-bustling core, only an occasional drop of water, dribbling through missing ceiling tiles, breaks the silence. “You came, you shopped, you dressed nice – you went to the mall. Gazing down at the motionless escalators, dead plants and empty benches below, he adds: “It’s still beautiful, though. Shopping culture follows housing culture. And it shows.
Australian Global Competitiveness Ranking Slips in 2016-17- The Australian Industry Group Australia's ranking of 22nd most competitive economy in 2016-17 leaves it lagging behind most of our peers including Canada (15th), New Zealand (13th), Japan (8th), the UK (7th), the US (3rd) and Singapore (2nd). Australia's largest trade partner, China, was ranked the 28th most competitive economy, the same as in in 2015-16. The top three competitive economies in 2016-17 are Switzerland (1st), Singapore (2nd) and the US (3rd), unchanged from 2015-16. Ai Group Chief Executive, Innes Willox, said: "The key policy message for Australian business, governments and the broader community arising from this year's WEF Global Competitiveness Report is that Australia must work harder just to keep up with the improvements to competitiveness among our peers. "For both businesses and governments this requires looking for innovative solutions and, critically, building community ownership of and support for the required business and policy directions," Mr Willox said.
Death of Canadian malls: Future of suburban shopping centres in jeopardy Photo from Michael Galinsky's Malls of America series, circa the 1980s. In the classic 1995 film Clueless, Cher and her bestie Dionne spend a disproportionate amount of time shopping at the mall. Like the soda shop before it the mall has long been the quintessential destination in pop culture, and IRL (texting speak for “in real life”), for teens to waste away the day. But in the two decades since Clueless premiered many malls across North America have been dying a slow, undignified death. Things have only gotten worse as of late. Several experts say malls must adapt to the times, or the retail model will die off. “There is an abundance of choice out there now,” Doug Stephens, a retail industry futurist based in Toronto, told Yahoo Canada News in an interview. Related stories: Renovations: Forget Ruin Porn: 5 Awesome Adapted Spaces That Used to Be Dead Malls A New Life for Dead Malls Can a Living Wage Save America’s Malls? Entrance to the abandoned Randall Park Mall.
A Sense of Place in Globalization | The Washington Institute Recently, I was talking with a Pastor friend at a coffee shop about the importance of a “sense of place” in a globalizing world. This is particularly relevant in Washington, DC, where many of our friends are frequently absent, “off the map,” spread across the globe. We both came from divided countries (Korea and Ireland) and felt called to love our current residence, the city of Washington DC. While it left me with more questions than answers, it was a lively and energizing discussion. How do you create roots while constantly on the move? My friend Steve Garber calls me “the most global citizen” that he knows, as the collage of geographies emerging from my other essay, Reflections on the Meaning of a Good Life, shows. The inspiration for making sense of this came from Wendell Berry’s books, such as The Humane Vision. “The main thing is realize that country people can’t invent a better agriculture by ourselves. 1. Among all places, one’s current residence is of particular importance.
The Canadian Shopping Mall: Neither Canadian Nor A Mall, Anymore There was a time when the Canadian shopping mall was more than a mecca for consumer culture. It was a community space that functioned as an exercise circuit for seniors, a fun escape for moms on maternity leave and the default weekend hangout for teenagers. Today, it's an environment under threat. A hyperspeed revolution in the retail sector promises to transform the Canadian shopping mall into something that is neither “Canadian” nor “mall.” That trend is clear in the fast-paced turnaround at the Toronto Eaton Centre. As Canada’s busiest shopping mall adapts to survive, it is rapidly becoming less Canadian. In just the few years since the 2008-2009 recession, the number of Canadian retailers in the mall has fallen by 10 percentage points, to half of all stores, according to an analysis by the Huffington Post Canada. The number of U.S. retailers has risen by nearly the same percentage, to 35 per cent, from 2008 and 2014. But it is Canadian apparel chains that are faring worst. Close Eaton's