by Michael Feek

Created on: August 06, 2009   Last Updated: August 10, 2009

The Rise and Fall of the Indoor Shopping Mall

In recent years, the indoor shopping mall has faced challenging economic times. In the last 10 years only one new one has been built and at least 100 indoor malls are in serious economic trouble with about 10-20% of those malls possibly closing. Once an icon of the American shopping scene, indoor malls are finding it tougher to remain viable and what were once money makers for investors are now sometimes looked at as white elephants or only serve the investor as a tax write off.

This article will look at not only how the economy of now has affected the indoor shopping mall but also some of the evolving history of the indoor shopping mall.

Malls fail for a varity of reasons, from poor mangement to simply being uncompetitive. There will always be some indoor malls that are successful so the indoor mall will not entirely fade from view but the weak economy will weed out the malls that offer what the shopper desires and those whose day has passed.

In a sense, the history of the indoor shopping mall has come full circle with the power centers of today resembling the strip malls of earlier years that the indoor shopping mall evolved from. This reflects a social change and changing shopping habits more than anything else.

One of the criticisms of big box retailers like Walmart is that these stores are the reason why so many indoor malls have failed or are failing. This is not entirely true because, although big box retailers may have killed some malls, they did not kill every struggling or dead mall. It is sometimes forgotten that many first generation Walmart stores were often in the first or second genertaion malls of the late 1960's and early 1970's.

Now, though, in-mall Walmarts (and in mall grocery stores) are becoming harder to find as most Walmart stores are located in stand alone locations. The fact that walmart offers many products and services in one location does make it difficult for the local indoor mall to compete for shoppers who may be wanting to save time and driving expense in this recession.

Socioeconomic factors can also play a part in the demise of a indoor mall. An example of this is Dixie Square in Harvey, Ilinois. Walmart did not kill this mall but the changing socioeconomic factors of the surrounding neighborhood killed the mall. The neighborhood around the mall went from upper middle class and working class that didn't really have a problem with crime.

However, as the heavy industrial

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