Finance
One of the most iconic pieces of
Americana, the shopping mall, isn’t really American at all. In fact,
the first mall was created by an Austrian refugee who wanted to recreate
an American version of downtown Vienna.
Victor Grün escaped to America
from Nazi Austria in 1938 with “an architect’s degree, eight dollars,
and no English.” By the late 1940s, World War II was over and the
American economy was in full swing. Suburban sprawl and consumerism were
the new normal, and this bothered Grün. “[Strip malls are] avenues of
horror… flanked by the greatest collection of vulgarity—billboards,
motels, gas stations, shanties, car lots, miscellaneous industrial
equipment, hot dog stands, wayside stores—ever collected by mankind,” he
wrote.
Grün conveived of a central,
indoor shopping location that would allow Americans to get out of their
cars and socialize. He envisioned a crop of apartment towers popping up
around the mall, the creation of an urban downtown within the suburbs -
that's not what he got.
Grün designed the first
shopping mall in the USA which opened in Edina, Minnesota in
1956. The Southdale Shopping Center cost $20 million to create and had
72 shops, cafés and even a zoo. More than 70,000 people attended the
mall on opening day. Copycat malls began to spring up around the country
following Grün's formula, plain exteriors with inward-facing stores,
multiple floors looking down into a central atrium and high windows.
The mall was a success, and they
grew in number quickly, partially because builders found they could
benefit from tax breaks granted by suburban municipalities, but also
because of something now dubbed "the Grün effect." When shoppers entered malls
their senses were thrown off and they were dazzled by the new
environment. Because of this, they would stay longer and shop more,
often forgetting the purpose of their trip in the first place.
By 1960 there were 4,500 malls
in America accounting for 14% of all retail sales. By 1975 there were
16,400 malls making up 33% of all retail sales and by 1987 there were
30,000 malls accounting for 50% of all retail dollars spent. The mall
had taken over America.
Mall culture had truly arrived
in the US. Films and TV shows proliferated the idea of the
“valley girl,” and the “mall rat.” In 1992, at the height of mall
culture, The Mall of America, not too far from the first mall in Edina,
Minnesota, opened its doors. The Mall of America occupied 78 acres
making it the largest mall in the USA. On opening day The Mall
of America had 330 stores, an amusement park, and employed 10,000
people.
By the mid-1990s, however, the
concept of "the mall" had hit its peak. 140 malls were being built a
year, creating too much competition, and discount stores like Marshall’s
began popping up, attracting bargain hunters away from the confines of
the mall.
The demographics of the suburbs
also changed as money started moving back into the cities. Between 2000
and 2011 the number of suburban poor grew by 64%, double the rate of the
city. In 2008, the U.S. toppled into a crippling recession and in 2011,
for the first time in over 100 years, urban population growth outpaced
suburban growth.
Around this time online retailers like Amazon.com took a 6% bite out of brick-and-mortar business. Put all of this together and it
meant bad news for the shopping mall. Retail analyst Green Street
Advisors predicts that half of American malls will close within the next
10 years, and even Southdale, our nation's first mall, has 18% of its
stores unfilled.
Victor Grün ended up renouncing
the mall, saying he hated what they stood for; publicly he refused to
“pay alimonies for these bastard projects.” It looks like 55 years
later, he’s finally getting his wish.
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