Once full of customers wandering around and spending money, this mall, the Northridge Mall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is one of dozens of shopping malls that have closed down, or have found another purpose. "The Retail Apocalypse" is the name coined in 2017 for the continuing closing of thousands of retail stores across the U.S., and other parts of the world. This UrbEx video is an exploration of that abandoned mall, about 16 years after it closed, in 2003.
Like most people over 20 years old, I grew up going to shopping malls with my family on a regular basis. In my birth state of Ohio, Sears, J.C. Penney, and Montgomery Wards were the three main anchor stores I remember, the huge department stores where my parent's shopped for just about everything, from school clothes, furniture, to dishes, to tools. Yes, we had big discount stores, like Kmart and Grant's in our area, and Walmart and later Target in many other areas.
Local shops in small town downtowns, or the big shopping centers were where my parents shopped on a daily basis. We often went to malls on weekends. The same was true for most of the millions of Americans around the country. Most all of you reading this have similar memories, I'm sure. Malls were such a part of American culture, indie director Kevin Smith made a movie called Mall Rats in 1995, just about the people hanging out in malls. You may recognize a couple of those actors, best known for their later work.
Then, in the 2010's something began to happen. The big department stores had been struggling for a while. But one by one, a few chain stores, in malls and shopping centers, began to close. Then a few more. I don't think anyone has a complete count, but several thousand individual stores closed from about 2010 to 2016.
The frequency was increasing, and major chain store closures started coming faster and faster. In 2017, the term "Retail Apocalypse" was first coined, and entered popular culture. The phrase "Dead Mall," appeared as well, later defined as a mall with at least 30% of its stores closed, and 70% or less still remaining. In in 2017, 2018, and 2019, about 20,000 stores closed, and many major chains went into bankruptcy or completely out of business.
In 2020, as the pandemic monkey wrenched life for just about everyone, another 9,300 stores closed in the U.S.. A few dozen of the original 1,200 or so enclosed shopping malls in the U.S. have closed down. Some have been repurposed, some are sitting abandoned, like in the video above, and a few have been demolished. In the obvious irony, several have been turned into Amazon fulfillment centers. A recent report says 80,000 MORE store closings can be expected by 2025.
Not only is there a Wikipedia page for the Retail Apocalypse itself, there's one just listing the stores that have closed, and that have gone completely out of business. So many malls, stores, factories, and other buildings have been abandoned, that urban exploration, or UrbEx, is now a hobby for lots of people in the younger generations.
Why is all this happening?
A lot of people blame Amazon, you know, before they tune into Prime, or shop from their phone. Some people blame bad management 15-20 years ago, at the former behemoth store chains, like Sears or J.C. Penney. While Amazon has taken a huge number of sales to the online world, I don't think they are specifically to blame.
My concept, and the reason for this blog, is The Big Freakin' Transition. It's and extension of The Third Wave concept futurist Alvin Toffler explained in his 1980 book* by that name. The basic idea is simple, we are leaving the old Industrial Age, and moving into the Information Age. But that massive transition doesn't happen overnight. That's where the simple idea gets really complex.
I believe, and The Big Freakin' Transition explains, that we are in an 80 to 90 year long transition period BETWEEN those two ages. The old, Industrial Age businesses, models, and organizations are losing steam, and ultimately, dying off. New, Information Age models, usually using newer technologies, are being built, tested, and evolving.
The Retail Apocalypse, in my opinion, is simply the old, Industrial Age goods distribution model breaking down, and dying off. We have lots of new technologies, which has led to new ways of living, and new ways of shopping and buying goods and services. As the shopping mall, shopping centers, and department stores become less appealing to people, that business model, and those stores, are dying off. It's much easier, and more efficient, and more time saving, to buy many things online, or on our phones now, and have them shipped to us. That's the new, Information Age goods distribution system being built. Amazon is a huge part of that, but so is eBay, Etsy, online stores and sites on platforms like Shopify and others, and millions personal websites selling unique items.
The Retail Apocalypse is the old, Industrial Age goods distribution system breaking down and dying off, and a new one, with much more online sales, and fewer physical stores, is being built. The new system will take us into the full Information Age, as all necessary businesses make the transition, or are invented and built. It's as simple as that.
There was another Retail Apocalypse, in the late 1800's, did you know that? A mail order business began to send catalogs to people across the U.S., and ship them goods from huge warehouses. This had a horrific effect on the small town general stores of the time, eventually most of them went out of business. In time, that mail-order company opened their own stores. Big ones. That mail order company was called Sears & Roebucks. Later they changed it to just Sears.
* not a paid link.
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