05-25-2021, 12:31 AM
Shopping malls are not yet objects of nostalgia. Disney does incorporate "Main Street USA", an attempt to give recollections of Small-Town America to people who either never experienced it (because they were born in Southern California, which never went through the "Small-Town America" phase as did his own Marceline, Missouri -- which is still a small town) or had little experience with it as orange groves became suburban tracts rushed into existence.
Small towns may have begun as boom-towns at rail stations (like the former ATSF* station in Marceline, which is now the Walt Disney Hometown Museum and stopped growing or have even faded away... and some bloated into larger places. Small town shopping areas evolved over time in part because one store was suitable for other uses as time passed. Thus a car dealership might become a pool-service place, then a stereo shop, then a pawn shop, and then a grocery store as a business became too big for the location, the activity became fashionable and then unprofitable, or... whatever. Shopping malls were far more costly to build and were too rigid in their economic strictures for any businesses not suited for white customers flush with cash and willing to pay full retail. (Shopping malls were built for white customers, with tenants being from relatively few businesses having rigid business plans. It was assumed that any other than white customers were trouble, so non-white customers could be rendered irrelevant through tenants' selections in merchandise. As the surrounding community changed in its ethnic mix, even if such was not a decline, the mall could not adapt. That itself practically ensured failure).
Small-town business was not so inflexible as shopping-mall business. Downtown retail districts in small towns could have their own character, with owners being characters in their own right. Try being much of a character in your own right as an employee of a boutique store -- and you will be fired. The boutique store is one of hundreds, and the manual of operation for Greater Phoenix is the same as the one for Greater Milwaukee.
Disney's "Main Street USA" in Disneyland was of course sanitized and commercialized. There would be no rowdy saloon,,, and you certainly did not go to Main Street, USA to go get your car repaired or see the dentist. Where I live I have had close encounters of the inebriated-pedestrian kind with my car. I have suggested that warning signs about tipsy pedestrians wandering out of bars with excessive pickling be made. Still, Disney wanted us to remember the best while taking a cut on the proceeds from some overpriced food-service place. I will not name names, as I do not give free advertising.
All in all shopping malls, despite their expensive construction, will be a shorter-lasting era in American shopping than the city-center with its small and competitive businesses was. Whenever the economy takes a downturn, the people once flush with cash abandon the malls for box stores that have lower costs of operation. Maybe small towns revive their centers with brass bands and other local talent... and bring in fair-like rides and such things as petting zoos and pony rides. Small towns used to do this; shopping malls never could.
*Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, which would be awkward in the sentence due to all the commas that there would be)
Small towns may have begun as boom-towns at rail stations (like the former ATSF* station in Marceline, which is now the Walt Disney Hometown Museum and stopped growing or have even faded away... and some bloated into larger places. Small town shopping areas evolved over time in part because one store was suitable for other uses as time passed. Thus a car dealership might become a pool-service place, then a stereo shop, then a pawn shop, and then a grocery store as a business became too big for the location, the activity became fashionable and then unprofitable, or... whatever. Shopping malls were far more costly to build and were too rigid in their economic strictures for any businesses not suited for white customers flush with cash and willing to pay full retail. (Shopping malls were built for white customers, with tenants being from relatively few businesses having rigid business plans. It was assumed that any other than white customers were trouble, so non-white customers could be rendered irrelevant through tenants' selections in merchandise. As the surrounding community changed in its ethnic mix, even if such was not a decline, the mall could not adapt. That itself practically ensured failure).
Small-town business was not so inflexible as shopping-mall business. Downtown retail districts in small towns could have their own character, with owners being characters in their own right. Try being much of a character in your own right as an employee of a boutique store -- and you will be fired. The boutique store is one of hundreds, and the manual of operation for Greater Phoenix is the same as the one for Greater Milwaukee.
Disney's "Main Street USA" in Disneyland was of course sanitized and commercialized. There would be no rowdy saloon,,, and you certainly did not go to Main Street, USA to go get your car repaired or see the dentist. Where I live I have had close encounters of the inebriated-pedestrian kind with my car. I have suggested that warning signs about tipsy pedestrians wandering out of bars with excessive pickling be made. Still, Disney wanted us to remember the best while taking a cut on the proceeds from some overpriced food-service place. I will not name names, as I do not give free advertising.
All in all shopping malls, despite their expensive construction, will be a shorter-lasting era in American shopping than the city-center with its small and competitive businesses was. Whenever the economy takes a downturn, the people once flush with cash abandon the malls for box stores that have lower costs of operation. Maybe small towns revive their centers with brass bands and other local talent... and bring in fair-like rides and such things as petting zoos and pony rides. Small towns used to do this; shopping malls never could.
*Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, which would be awkward in the sentence due to all the commas that there would be)
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.