Showing posts with label refugee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label refugee. Show all posts
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Angela Merkel: Time Magazine's Person of the Year
Opposition to her in Germany and throughout Europe is building, so perhaps this kind of recognition will help open some minds to the benefits of her logic. For me, just thinking about an alternate to Merkel can be a frightening thought. --rsb
["During Time‘s Person of the Year search, the magazine invited Donald Trump for a shoot with a patriotic theme." -- That was a challenge he won't soon forget. That, and probably also that he lost to Merkel. rsb]
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Rick Steves blogs: Don't be terrorized!
Don’t Be Terrorized
After Friday’s horrifying events in Paris, as we keep the victims and their families in our prayers and marvel at how violent hatred can express itself, it’s natural for those of us with travels coming up to wonder what is the correct response. Let me share my thoughts:
I have two fundamental concerns: what is safe, and what is the appropriate response to terrorism.
About safety, I believe this is an isolated incident. Tomorrow Paris will be no more dangerous than it was the day before that terrible Friday the 13th. I also believe that security in Paris and throughout Europe will be heightened in response to this attack. Remember: There’s an important difference between fear and risk.
About the right response to terrorism, I believe we owe it to the victims of this act not to let the terrorist win by being terrorized. That’s exactly the response they are hoping for. Sure, it’s natural for our emotions to get the best of us. But, especially given the impact of sensational media coverage, we need to respond intelligently and rationally.
In 2004, Madrid suffered a terrorist bombing in its Metro, which killed 191 and injured 1,800. In 2005, London suffered a similar terrorist bombing in its Tube system, killing 52 and injuring 700. These societies tightened their security, got the bad guys, and carried on. Paris will, too.
I’m sure that many Americans will cancel their trips to Paris (a city of 2 million people) or the rest of Europe (a continent of 500 million people), because of an event that killed about 150. As a result, ironically, they’ll be staying home in a country of 320 million people that loses over 30,000 people a year (close to 100 people a day) to gun violence.
Again, our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Paris, the victims, and their loved ones. And it remains my firmly held belief that the best way for Americans to fight terrorism is to keep on traveling. ........ Posted Nov. 13 2015
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Die Fluechtlingen in Deutschland -- Refugees in Germany 2015
Before and After --
DAS DING UNTERRICHTET HIER!
Whose story do you find most poignant? How do they compare with other stories you might have been touched by?
Her's one from yesterday's Providence Journal, thanks to columnist, Mark Patinkin:
The United Nations says almost half the 400,000 refugees who’ve arrived by sea into Europe this year have come from Syria. It is said to be the world's most war-torn nation and the most devastated city there is Homs. Hundreds of thousands from Homs have become refugees.But not all who've fled that city have ended up in Europe.Here is the story of one who came instead to the United States — a story with an astonishing ending.
His name is Abdulfattah Jandali.Many refugees from Syria are Christian — Jandali is a Muslim, one of five children, the others all sisters. His mother was a traditional housewife who took care of home and family.His father owned land and real estate and was rather authoritarian. Jandali wanted to study law in Damascus, but his dad thought Syria had too many lawyers and pushed him to pursue general studies at the prestigious American University of Beirut. Many of the current refugees from Syria have means — at least enough to pay thousands to smugglers to get out of the country.Jandali’s family could be said to be wealthy. So he had options when he decided to become a migrant himself. The unrest in the Middle East — the politics, protests and upheaval, prompted him to flee for a better life.
But unlike many Syrians now in the news, Jandali did not choose Europe.He had the ability to make it to America, in part because he had family here. He arrived in New York and lived with a relative there who worked with the Syrian delegation at the United Nations. Jandali liked it here — he found America to be an accepting country. He resolved to make America his home and indeed, got into graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, where he studied political science. There, Jandali met and began to date a Catholic girl named Carole Schieble, who grew up on a Wisconsin farm. Her father was opposed to her marrying a Syrian immigrant, so when she unexpectedly became pregnant, they decided to give the baby up for adoption. An interested couple was found — well-off, well-educated and Catholic. But when the baby turned out to be a boy, they changed their mind; they had wanted a girl.
Another couple was found — their names were Paul and Clara. Except there was a problem. Jandali and Scheible wanted the adoptive parents to be college educated, and Paul and Clara weren’t. They were strictly working class. Paul, from Wisconsin, had never graduated high school. He served in the Coast Guard and became a machinist. But Jandali and Scheible ultimately agreed. A few months later, Scheible's father died, and she and Jandali did marry. Jandali later said they would have kept the boy had he been born then — just as they kept a girl born after named Mona — but by then, the first child was gone to another family.
The boy's new parents, Paul and Clara, named him Steve and moved to California. There, Paul, the adoptive father, taught his son a love of mechanics. They moved to a new home in Palo Alto, where the dad set up a workbench in their garage and Steve continued tinkering there, though his new focus was electronics. Steve never met his biological father Jandali, who immigrated here 60 years ago, in 1954, and is still alive at age 84, having worked first as a professor, then a restaurant owner, and is today vice chairman of a casino in Reno. His son Steve was raised in the Christian faith, and ultimately embraced Zen Buddhism.
Steve also had quite a successful career. I am telling this story in this time of a global refugee crisis not to make a political statement. I frankly don't know what our policy should be on who we accept from Syria, and how many. I am just observing the complexity of the issue. -- By pointing out that the son of Abdulfattah Jandali, a political immigrant from the Syrian city of Homs, was Steve Jobs.
Mark Patinkin, Providence Journal
DAS DING UNTERRICHTET HIER!
Whose story do you find most poignant? How do they compare with other stories you might have been touched by?
Her's one from yesterday's Providence Journal, thanks to columnist, Mark Patinkin:
The United Nations says almost half the 400,000 refugees who’ve arrived by sea into Europe this year have come from Syria. It is said to be the world's most war-torn nation and the most devastated city there is Homs. Hundreds of thousands from Homs have become refugees.But not all who've fled that city have ended up in Europe.Here is the story of one who came instead to the United States — a story with an astonishing ending.
His name is Abdulfattah Jandali.Many refugees from Syria are Christian — Jandali is a Muslim, one of five children, the others all sisters. His mother was a traditional housewife who took care of home and family.His father owned land and real estate and was rather authoritarian. Jandali wanted to study law in Damascus, but his dad thought Syria had too many lawyers and pushed him to pursue general studies at the prestigious American University of Beirut. Many of the current refugees from Syria have means — at least enough to pay thousands to smugglers to get out of the country.Jandali’s family could be said to be wealthy. So he had options when he decided to become a migrant himself. The unrest in the Middle East — the politics, protests and upheaval, prompted him to flee for a better life.
But unlike many Syrians now in the news, Jandali did not choose Europe.He had the ability to make it to America, in part because he had family here. He arrived in New York and lived with a relative there who worked with the Syrian delegation at the United Nations. Jandali liked it here — he found America to be an accepting country. He resolved to make America his home and indeed, got into graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, where he studied political science. There, Jandali met and began to date a Catholic girl named Carole Schieble, who grew up on a Wisconsin farm. Her father was opposed to her marrying a Syrian immigrant, so when she unexpectedly became pregnant, they decided to give the baby up for adoption. An interested couple was found — well-off, well-educated and Catholic. But when the baby turned out to be a boy, they changed their mind; they had wanted a girl.
Another couple was found — their names were Paul and Clara. Except there was a problem. Jandali and Scheible wanted the adoptive parents to be college educated, and Paul and Clara weren’t. They were strictly working class. Paul, from Wisconsin, had never graduated high school. He served in the Coast Guard and became a machinist. But Jandali and Scheible ultimately agreed. A few months later, Scheible's father died, and she and Jandali did marry. Jandali later said they would have kept the boy had he been born then — just as they kept a girl born after named Mona — but by then, the first child was gone to another family.
The boy's new parents, Paul and Clara, named him Steve and moved to California. There, Paul, the adoptive father, taught his son a love of mechanics. They moved to a new home in Palo Alto, where the dad set up a workbench in their garage and Steve continued tinkering there, though his new focus was electronics. Steve never met his biological father Jandali, who immigrated here 60 years ago, in 1954, and is still alive at age 84, having worked first as a professor, then a restaurant owner, and is today vice chairman of a casino in Reno. His son Steve was raised in the Christian faith, and ultimately embraced Zen Buddhism.
Steve also had quite a successful career. I am telling this story in this time of a global refugee crisis not to make a political statement. I frankly don't know what our policy should be on who we accept from Syria, and how many. I am just observing the complexity of the issue. -- By pointing out that the son of Abdulfattah Jandali, a political immigrant from the Syrian city of Homs, was Steve Jobs.
Mark Patinkin, Providence Journal
Sunday, October 4, 2015
Marking 25 years of German unity
REUTERS - World
|
BERLIN
|
As Germany
celebrated 25 years since reunification on Saturday, President Joachim
Gauck said Europe's refugee crisis posed a greater challenge to the
country than the welding together of western Germany and the former communist East.
Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor from East Germany who played a prominent role in the peaceful protests there that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, said the two halves of the country had become one over the past quarter of a century.
"What belongs together has grown back together," he told an audience in Frankfurt that included Chancellor Angela Merkel and civil rights campaigners from the former East.
But Gauck said the process of restoring unity had been much harder than many people had imagined amid the euphoria of 1989 and 1990.
Back then, west Germans cheered and clapped their eastern peers as they crossed the border that had separated them for decades in their Trabis, the iconic cars of East Germany.
More recently Germans have applauded refugees fleeing countries like Syria as they arrived at Munich's central train station. The government estimates that 800,000 or more people might come to Germany over the course of 2015.
Gauck, who has a largely ceremonial role but is considered a moral authority for the nation, warned that integrating refugees with different religions and cultures would be much tougher than uniting Germans, who had shared the same language, national culture and history even during their separation.
"Just like in 1990 we're all facing a challenge that will occupy us for generations. But unlike back then, something is now supposed to grow together that has not belonged together until now," he said.
Gauck urged Germans to be patient, saying it would take time to get used to an environment in which "some of what is familiar is gone" while refugees would need time to get used to a society that would sometimes put them in conflict with their traditional norms.
Gauck urged refugees to make an effort to integrate into German society and stressed that German values such as human dignity, equal rights for women and homosexuals and respect for the secular law regardless of any religious affiliations were "not up for debate".
His comments reflect growing concern in Germany that the huge influx of refugees could put strain on the liberal values at the heart of modern democratic Germany and he suggested the country would not show "tolerance in return for intolerance".
While still welcoming the newcomers, Germany is now focusing increasingly on the need to ensure respect for German culture. Germany has translated parts of its constitution which outline basic rights such as freedom of speech into Arabic.
Most of the refugees fleeing conflicts and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and beyond come from conservative Muslim societies with much more traditional ideas about the role of women, homosexuality and other issues.
Gauck and Merkel, who also grew up behind the Iron Curtain in the former East, both called for more help from other countries in dealing with the refugee crisis.
"Germany can't solve the problem alone but only in cooperation with Europe by a fair division of tasks and with the rest of the world," she said.
Gauck also called for people to show understanding for eastern European countries and even eastern Germany taking a different stance in the debate on refugees to western Europe.
While western Germany was able to get used to being a country of immigration over decades, he said, many people in the east had hardly had any contact with immigrants before 1990.
There are still far fewer migrants in eastern Germany than in the west of the country.
EAST STILL LAGS
Gauck said changing attitudes towards refugees and migrants could only be the result of years of tough learning processes and being aware of this should make it easier to respect other nations' experiences - an apparent reference to eastern European states such as Hungary and Slovakia which have opposed binding quotas for distributing refugees within the EU.
Gauck said there were still differences between Germany's east and west but they had got smaller over the years and had "almost completely disappeared" among the younger generation.
He acknowledged that for many in the east, reunification had not only meant the introduction of colorful travel catalogues, fast cars and full shelves in shops but also mass unemployment, the winding down of nationally-owned companies, mass migration and empty buildings.
In eastern Germany, unemployment is still higher than in the west while wages and economic output are lower. A study published earlier this year showed East German workers work longer and have lower productivity. Belonging to a religious community is less widespread in the east than in the west.
While the vast majority of Germans still think there are still big differences between western and eastern Germany, two-thirds welcome reunification, a survey of 80,000 by YouGov showed this week.
(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Gauck, a former Lutheran pastor from East Germany who played a prominent role in the peaceful protests there that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, said the two halves of the country had become one over the past quarter of a century.
"What belongs together has grown back together," he told an audience in Frankfurt that included Chancellor Angela Merkel and civil rights campaigners from the former East.
But Gauck said the process of restoring unity had been much harder than many people had imagined amid the euphoria of 1989 and 1990.
Back then, west Germans cheered and clapped their eastern peers as they crossed the border that had separated them for decades in their Trabis, the iconic cars of East Germany.
More recently Germans have applauded refugees fleeing countries like Syria as they arrived at Munich's central train station. The government estimates that 800,000 or more people might come to Germany over the course of 2015.
Gauck, who has a largely ceremonial role but is considered a moral authority for the nation, warned that integrating refugees with different religions and cultures would be much tougher than uniting Germans, who had shared the same language, national culture and history even during their separation.
"Just like in 1990 we're all facing a challenge that will occupy us for generations. But unlike back then, something is now supposed to grow together that has not belonged together until now," he said.
Gauck urged Germans to be patient, saying it would take time to get used to an environment in which "some of what is familiar is gone" while refugees would need time to get used to a society that would sometimes put them in conflict with their traditional norms.
Gauck urged refugees to make an effort to integrate into German society and stressed that German values such as human dignity, equal rights for women and homosexuals and respect for the secular law regardless of any religious affiliations were "not up for debate".
His comments reflect growing concern in Germany that the huge influx of refugees could put strain on the liberal values at the heart of modern democratic Germany and he suggested the country would not show "tolerance in return for intolerance".
While still welcoming the newcomers, Germany is now focusing increasingly on the need to ensure respect for German culture. Germany has translated parts of its constitution which outline basic rights such as freedom of speech into Arabic.
Most of the refugees fleeing conflicts and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and beyond come from conservative Muslim societies with much more traditional ideas about the role of women, homosexuality and other issues.
Gauck and Merkel, who also grew up behind the Iron Curtain in the former East, both called for more help from other countries in dealing with the refugee crisis.
"Germany can't solve the problem alone but only in cooperation with Europe by a fair division of tasks and with the rest of the world," she said.
Gauck also called for people to show understanding for eastern European countries and even eastern Germany taking a different stance in the debate on refugees to western Europe.
While western Germany was able to get used to being a country of immigration over decades, he said, many people in the east had hardly had any contact with immigrants before 1990.
There are still far fewer migrants in eastern Germany than in the west of the country.
EAST STILL LAGS
Gauck said changing attitudes towards refugees and migrants could only be the result of years of tough learning processes and being aware of this should make it easier to respect other nations' experiences - an apparent reference to eastern European states such as Hungary and Slovakia which have opposed binding quotas for distributing refugees within the EU.
Gauck said there were still differences between Germany's east and west but they had got smaller over the years and had "almost completely disappeared" among the younger generation.
He acknowledged that for many in the east, reunification had not only meant the introduction of colorful travel catalogues, fast cars and full shelves in shops but also mass unemployment, the winding down of nationally-owned companies, mass migration and empty buildings.
In eastern Germany, unemployment is still higher than in the west while wages and economic output are lower. A study published earlier this year showed East German workers work longer and have lower productivity. Belonging to a religious community is less widespread in the east than in the west.
While the vast majority of Germans still think there are still big differences between western and eastern Germany, two-thirds welcome reunification, a survey of 80,000 by YouGov showed this week.
(Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Germany Helps House Refugees as they Wait for Asylum
As refugees flood in....
In this photo taken on Thursday, July 30, 2015, Syrian refugee Leila, no last name given, poses in an emergency shelter in Berlin where she waits with her family for her pending registration as asylum seekers. The surge in migrants and refugees to Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and elsewhere this year has sent countries scrambling to come up with housing - both temporary for those awaiting the outcome of asylum applications, and permanent for those allowed to stay. Many European countries face similar problems, but none greater than Germany. Europe’s richest economy attracted 43 percent of Europe’s 400,000 asylum applications in the first half of the year - more than double the number in the same period of 2014. (AP Photo/Olga Syrova)
By OLGA SYROVA, Associated Press
BERLIN (AP) — Twenty-three-year-old Leila, her husband and two small children spent their first week in Germany in a temporary shelter, an austere but desperately needed haven after a traumatic flight from Syria that began when her husband was told to fight for the government.
Among an expected 800,000 asylum seekers flowing into Germany this year — some four times last year's count — she and her family shared a small room built in a converted covered tennis court in downtown Berlin during their first week in the country in August, furnished with three Ikea bunk beds, a small table and a small closet. They received three meals a day in a common room for the 300 refugees in the facility, and bathrooms were shared.
The setup was basic by European standards, but for Leila, who cannot forget the bodies littering the streets of the Syrian city of Aleppo, it was a fresh start.
"We were so afraid, before we came here," said Leila, who requested that her last name not be used for fear of retribution against her family still in Syria. "Now we feel comfortable because we are treated well ... We feel safe here."
The surge in migrants and refugees to Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and elsewhere this year has sent countries scrambling to come up with housing — both temporary for those awaiting the outcome of asylum applications, and permanent for those allowed to stay. German authorities say they have 45,000 spots in temporary facilities for new asylum applicants — excluding tent settlements that have been hastily erected — but they need as many as 150,000.
Many European countries face similar problems, but none greater than Germany. Europe's richest economy attracted 43 percent of Europe's 400,000 asylum applications in the first half of the year — more than double the number in the same period of 2014.
The converted tennis court where Leila and her family are being housed was supposed to be closed in May, but it has been kept open to help deal with the flood of newcomers. Funded by the city, it is run by the Berlin City Mission, a Christian nonprofit organization, and staffed largely by volunteers.
Elsewhere in Berlin, portable shipping containers have been converted into small stacks of apartments to accommodate 2,400 refugees around the capital. At one in container village in southwestern Berlin, which is just opening, colorfully painted containers offer comfortable space for 300 refugees. It boasts single rooms with shared kitchens and bathrooms on each floor, as well as small flats for families, and even accommodation for the disabled.
In government and non-governmental projects around the country, former military barracks are being converted to housing, disused nursing homes are being refurbished and even small tent cities are being erected. Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has already doubled the financial assistance available to local authorities to 1 billion euros ($112 billion) and has called a meeting with state leaders in September to discuss the refugee situation further.
Some Germans have taken matters into their own hands. Last year, Berlin resident Jonas Kakoschke decided with his roommate to house a refugee in her place while she was spending six months abroad.
Kakoschke helped the refugee, a Mali-born man from Senegal, learn the language, get his paperwork done and eventually find his own apartment. Now, with the online project "Refugees Welcome" that Kakosche and his roommate founded together, they help find private placements for more new arrivals, by matching ages, language skills and other criteria.
"Many refugees say they don't have direct contact with local population and our project helps them with that," Kakoschke said.
Through July, they say they have placed 64 refugees across Germany and 34 in Austria in private apartments. There's also been reports of people across Germany who have taken in refugees on their own, but it is not clear exactly how many.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Germany is the 2nd top migration destination of choice -- after US
- 68 percent of migrants in Germany are in active employment, says the OECD (Photo: Paolo Margari)
EUOBSERVER
01.12.14 @ 18:11 By Nikolaj Nielsen
BRUSSELS - More migrants are heading to Germany than any other wealthy country except the US, according to the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
An OECD report out Monday (1 December) says Germany recorded a double-digit increase in the number of migrants in 2013 and its fourth consecutive annual rise.
Some 450,000 people migrated to Germany last year. Of those, around three quarters come from other EU member states. Germany is also in pole position in terms of accepting the most Syrian refugees with 110,000 asylum claims, followed by the United States, France, Sweden, and Turkey.
...The OECD report is a cross comparative analysis of immigration trends in the 34 nations that make up the Paris-based club. It found migration flows are once again on the rise after the slowdown associated with the global financial crisis. But at the same time, it noted a 40 percent drop in the number of non-EU migrants arriving in the EU between 2007 and 2012. Most of the EU-based labour migration declines were registered in Italy, Portugal, and Spain.
“As a result, legal permanent migration flows from third countries into Europe are now for the first time lower than similar flows to the United States,” OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria told reporters. He said gender and education levels of migrants are rapidly changing when compared to previous studies. Most now tend to be women, well-educated, and over-qualified for the jobs they land in the hosting nations.
“Migrants are an asset, not a liability. Migrants are a resource, not a problem,” he said. Around 115 million migrants live in OECD nations. One in 10 is from China and one in five from Asia.
Gurria said the overall fiscal impact of immigration in most of the countries is positive, noting that more migrants are needed to meet labour demands.
...Speaking alongside Gurria, European migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the Brussels-executive is working on launching a new migration policy initiative. The number of arrivals in the UK has progressively decreased over the years. ... The issue ... has become politically toxic in some countries. “We need to change the narrative of migration, we need to show its positive impacts,” he said. “In the case of the UK, I believe it is net positive.”
Hier zum Thema kommt ein Udo Lindenberg Lied "Er wollte nach Deutschland", das Sebastian Krumbiegel uns hier vorspielt (More on this theme is the Lindenberg song: "Er wanted to get to Germany," as performed by lead singer of the a cappella band from Leipzig, Die Prinzen, Sebastian Krumbiegel) :
Jetzt weiß ich, was für ein begabter Klavierspieler der Krumbiegel ist (wenn hier auch vielleicht etwas zu laut, aber ich möchte nicht kritisieren!). Er singt auch mit den Prinzen aus Leipzig, und besucht uns hier in den USA durch das Goethe-Institut.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
The rise and fall of the shopping mall
Yahoo Online
Finance
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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