Cool article and photo essay in the New York Times on dead malls, how these are emptied out through the auction process, where all the stuff goes, etc. The images are akin to “ruin-porn,” visual documentation of once grand buildings and public spaces now abandoned or crumbling in decline. It’s further evidence of the long, gradual and steady decline over the past 25 years in the presence and centrality of retail stores and changes in consumer shopping behaviors due to ecommerce, Amazon, and the ubiquity of tools and technologies, from the Internet and smartphones to streaming and the ever more efficient logistics allowing for fast-and-easy delivery. The pressure on retailers due to these changes hit a critical mass in the past decade. More storefront business are pulling out of commercial leases. Main streets have been hollowing out or, in the case of malls, shutting down completely. The COVID pandemic has only made things tougher and exacerbated the trend.
GLOBAL GRAPHICA 