America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning(bloomberg.com) |
America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning(bloomberg.com) |
I'm from Australia which is full of them (though we call them "shopping centres"). And they seem very pleasant to me. They are convenient for many kinds of shopping. I didn't hang out there as a teenager in the '90s, but others from my school did.
Since then they have become more pleasant for socialising -- though perhaps more upmarket and less teenager friendly. They have proper restaurants as well as the old food courts. And my mother's favourite cafe is at a shopping mall -- and it is reallyp excellent.
https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/marc-squares.png?...
The big problem with this is AUS GDP is about $47k per person. US GDP is 57k. So for only $10,000 more earned per person, we have double the retail space. This can't possibly work long term. US retail is in bad shape because of terrible monetary policy.
In more recent times, they redid the food court. It is bigger, with a lot more room to sit comfortably and relax a while. They have some more upscale dining choices, organic food, vegetarian food. It makes it more likely that I would stop and eat there.
I would think the competition from online made them do this. They are in a good location and didn't have to worry much about bringing in customers before.
After the dot com bust/mini recession, most department stores stopped stocking clothes in my size so I buy much of it online. I frequently try to hold out and find some electronic item or replacement part in local stores. I almost always fail and resort to Amazon.
I'm currently looking for a cheap Bissel vacuum that is available on Amazon. I have yet to see a retailer anywhere carrying that model. Expensive, overpriced vacuums are all you can get retail these days.
Problem is, I’m a gorilla... not skinny enough to be “tall” and not fat enough to be “big”, and there is not one store out of 250 that sell size 14 shoes, or a shirt with a size 19 neck that doesn’t look like a parachute, or a 52 long jacket.
I see it in other areas. If you walk through Lord and Taylor or Macy’s, there’s a whole floor of petite women’s clothing. I look on the mall and see lots of bigger, taller or bustier women, all of whom are wearing clothes — but not from Macy’s!
When you focus on the average consumer exclusively, you miss a lot of people!
That sounds like an insignificant number -- you can get as many openings, if not way more, in a country with 10-50 million population (but less centralized retail sector, with fewer cross-country chains).
Now I'm no longer forced by stores to buy what they happen to have in their inventory. Want that obscure JPN VN? Done, delivered next day.
I do feel bad about people losing their jobs. But the discounters and upmarket stores will always survive.
(For example: Who sells empty glass bottles, a braided belt, fridge magnets, facepaint? There are probably about 10 stores that have it, but which ones? I can easily walk one or two kilometers just checking them out. FYI, this is a European town.)
I get my esoteric shit tomorrow. That's how they're different. Sorry, but not everyone is entitled to a job in 2018.
timing the event is hard if not impossible.
It's likely the specialty stores are being crushed by online retailers. Their raison d'être was always having more inventory depth than general retail, e.g. the shoe store has a much better selection than the shoe department at Sears. But if you're after selection, you can't do better than your browser.
But I’m definitely a purposeful shopper: I’m always in and out with one goal in mind, I never “browse”. Maybe wal-mart and the like are more attractive to people who just kinda want to browse around and kill time?
There but for the grace of God go I. I hope karma deals with you accordingly, should you ever find yourself in dire straits.
However, I do feel bad for the people that will lose their jobs over it.
Let's make towns have downtowns, with beautiful brick roads, scenic ponds with some ducks, perhaps a waterfall, some nice cafes, a lawn with benches, some parks, some nature, trees, live music, a library and museums. It's okay to have some retails stores sprinkled around here and there, as long as they're original, and not those mass market plastic selling behemoaths we see everywhere.
But really, it seems like you want a town with more parks.
My main complaint about malls is how _loud_ they are: visually and auditory-ly (someone please tell me what the right word is). Malls are crowded, adorned in bright, garish colors, filled with stale food court food smells. There is very little seating other than at food courts, water fountains are hidden far away in some corner, loud music plays almost all the time, or it's noisy because of all the people. In sunny Silicon Valley, parking is a nightmare but there'll only be one bike stand hidden in a 50 acre space. It somehow has all of the worst features of a busy bazaar with almost none of the good (local products, "authentic"-ness, ability to haggle etc). Just standing in a shopping mall stresses me out.
It's possible that the present state of the art of mall design ticks the boxes for the largest audience possible and I'm the weirdo.
Montreal and Toronto have huge indoor shopping areas connected by subway, I suppose technically they are malls.
I live in Toronto and it's wonderful to have nice streets that you can walk and bike on, even at ±30C.
Denver gets very little precipitation so rain is something that generally is not an issue though.
Sure, they don't completely isolate humans from weather conditions but these solutions significantly improve the livability and prolonged usability of an urbanization, without burning bathtubs of gasoline to keep running.
Humans are not obliged to colonize every single corner of the planet...
If you think malls are only about consumerism then you've misunderstood a big part of their appeal for a lot of people. Young people and groups of friends don't go to the mall on their own. Malls merge consumerism with social activity - they're for people who enjoy shopping with their friends.
If that's not you then fair enough, but don't disparage malls simply because they don't appeal to you. If they disappear society will be worse for many, many people.
Many malls have banned people under 18 unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. This practice started around 10 years ago.
Just in case anyone doubts me: http://www.parenting.com/news-break/why-your-teen-getting-ba...
>Up to 80 malls across the United States enforce a curfew or escort policy for teenagers
I was still looking young in 2008 despite being well into my 20s and that's when I got IDed at a mall entrance. I was so annoyed/insulted by it I never went back to that mall every again. I can understand getting IDed at a bar, but not at a friggin mall.
However, the mall isn't a public space and things a healthy society allows for - protest, hand holding, being different looking, aren't necessarily allowed in a mall.
Regardless if a mall is preferable in 100 degree heat or -10 degree cold, those other spaces are important for other reasons.
I don't think this has been true, at least in the US, since the 1990s.
They don't go at all. Because most malls nowadays (in my area, anyway) have rules saying they have to be chaperoned by an adult.
You would think! I live in Santa Monica, California, and we have exactly that in our downtown area. The retail shop turnover is insane -- a large amount of shops come and go from the area, despite the massive amount of foot traffic the area sees every weekend (and most weekdays during the summer).
I would also nominate DTLA. Downtown is lit. Parking is wack though.
Consumers are no longer interested in old retail chains. They follow influencers and their original brands, but they're mostly direct to consumer, and everything arrives in two days anyway.
As noted in another comment, Main St. is a bit better with some ok food, bars and coffee shops, but the retail side doesn't offer much. Most likely out of sheer need for survival due to super expensive lease rates, most retail is oriented towards tourists, with a little bit reserved for ultra wealthy of the area.
They have a good restaurant selection, too, with a not-depressing food court and a set of good-to-great restaurants. For families, the mall is still genuinely one-stop shopping for clothes, pet supplies, groceries, bikes, dining out, etc.
I often find myself missing my old, reliable Aeon when I'm abroad. I think malls like Aeon deliver on the promise that malls in America fall short on. Aeon is also the biggest retailer in Asia, IIRC.
A typical mall would have a food court, a large arcade for kids, a daycare (or two), pharmacies, coffee shops, a book store, a furniture store, and so on. Also, unlike from what I've seen here in the US, any decent mall must contain a large supermarket (usually Carrefour). Malls in the UAE are therefore a "one stop shop" that people go to every week to buy groceries and household supplies.
Given how hot it can get over there, it makes absolute sense to have everything in one, air conditioned building.
I think that malls could make a huge comeback with a focus on events that naturally draw people in and an emphasis on the kinds of high-touch products that people generally do prefer to buy in person.
When you're 13 it's like one of the few places that large where you can hang out without parents around.
But yeah that was when I was 13. They haven't really innovated much. It's a great place for kids but no so much for adults. I thought almost everyone had a great childhood mall experiences haha, but I guess not.
What malls do have is space, and that kind of large space owned by a single entity is rare these days within a reasonable travel time away. Redevelopment potential is definitely there.
Also, a professor of mine once wondered why we don't have great public spaces like they do in Europe. Then he realized that we do -- in the form of college campuses.
It's much more like a conventional mall than a downtown: It's effectively walled off from the rest of the neighbordood. You're expected to go there by driving your car, and it's isolated by its massive parking lots so nobody would consider walking in or out a pleasant experience.
I'm not aware of anyone there--except maybe... jewelers?--that enjoy long-term careers at a mall. It's like an entire parking lot full of McDonalds. They'll find new jobs. Everyone at Circuit City managed to move.
And I'm in no way bashing retail or food worker. I used to tell people I did a "five year tour of duty at Sam's Clubs and I've got the [five year] medal to prove it." My point is that those jobs are both 1) crap working conditions and pay. and 2) easily transferable to comparable jobs at other employers.
Circuit City disappeared and the world moved on. K-Mart is still around but everyone who values their careers has already jumped ship. Block Buster is gone and the world keeps ticking. Mall store employees will continue on.
The real question is why no malls either care to, or are unable to, attract stores that appeal to customers. We are definitely becoming more hermit-like as a society, but there's got to be "something" most non-hermits enjoy. The whole purpose of the Mall is a bunch of stores that add value to each other by being near each other. "I bring Dad for a lawn mower, and the kids hit the arcade." (Man, I miss finding quarters and taking them to the arcades.) So my point here is, single stores still exist, so clearly it's not "stores in general" going out, but more "the stores malls want" people care less about.
No, the 'real reason' has nothing to do with shopping. The article touched on the actual problem. It is way too easy to get into billions of dollars in debt. If you own mall real estate, who do you want at your mall.
Small businesses that attract customers, but have to pay you with money they earn.
Or
Large chains that earn earn billions by playing leveraged debt games, and will pay stupidly high rates for rent, no customers required.
Malls will survive just fine, the moment rents and property prices are back in touch with reality.
no reason failing malls cannot be remade into such. It has been done and no reason they cannot be a hub for such.
but as mass transportation and cars whacked mom&pop stores so the internet reduces the needs for boutique type stores and small chain merchandise oriented stores.
I'll agree with and extend your remarks on a tangent that at one point in human history literacy was nice but not required to participate in the economy. Currently shopping by catalog and spec and datasheet is for the cognitive elite like engineers, but soon enough its going to be a required new higher minimum of economic participation. You'll pick out your next bicycle by reading technical manuals and holding a ruler up to your leg, or you'll fail miserably at buying a bicycle. Just like its sad that illiterate or innumerate people get screwed in todays economy, people who can't shop like an engineer are going to get screwed in coming decades. What you're looking at is evolution of the economy to increase income inequality as it always does and increase specialization as it always does and require more work out of people as it always does. There's nothing really new about it, its just people who can't shop like an engineer are just not going to be able to shop anymore, at least not successfully, just like someone illiterate has a rough time shopping today.
Which makes sense, as their main purpose is to be places to shop for clothes, electronics, kitchenware, and so on, not any of those other things.
First of all downtown already has a purpose which is to extract middle class home equity, run it thru the retail and restaurant wringer where 95% of businesses fail in the first two years or whatever. Its easy for the city to run downtown; the city doesn't have to worry about parking, for example, because those businesses are designed to fail and new suckers appear as fast as home equity loans can be sold so they don't need parking for businesses that don't have customers LOL. This also becomes self fulfilling, downtown is for dead businesses so why would I go there unless I had to because by definition the businesses downtown suck or they wouldn't be downtown where businesses go to die?
Secondly the downtown has drunks, criminals, crazy people, panhandlers, drug addicts in various state of withdrawl, buskers, homeless, and many/most cities are constrained to the light touch, which is nice for those folks, but also means nobody wants to go there. Crazy people have to go somewhere, and downtown has the church mission and a park by the river and a liquor store for self medication. I'm not even remotely interested in hanging out with those people, so I'll go to the Target at the interstate exit instead, or more than a generation ago I'd have gone to a mall where security is at least not non-existent. Your example of a park bench will have a homeless person sleeping on it, the scenic pond will have a drunk peeing in it, the cafes nobody wants to sit at because of aggressive panhandlers and the smell of excrement from the streets and alleys... You're asking for the whites-only exburbs where the average sales price is above $800K to keep out the riff raff that's 30+ miles out of town, I live by those places and they're cool but unachievable for 90% of the population. I live in the 3rd richest suburb in my metro area and even here our downtown is dying, getting overrun. The economy of the future is clustered around interstate exits not some arbitrary place where a railroad put a depot 150 years ago.
But in the US retail has been overbuilt for decades because the tax incentive of passive loss fueled construction until the Tax Reform Act of 1986. It helped precipitate the S&L crisis. Low interest rates helped overbuilding recover by making real-estate development more attractive and creating higher relative returns from real-estate investment.
The politics of lower taxes over the past forty years has made local governments more dependent on sales tax for funding. Because sales tax increases tend to be more politically palatable due to their regressive nature, local governments tend to be very much in love with retail. The love manifests itself as ready approval of new retail development and an even greater aversion to downzoning existing obsolescent retail parcels and broadzoning existing retail zoning districts.
Oooh, I am so happy if this really happens. The entire financial industry that makes "profits" from loading purchased companies up with debt and then leaving them to die needs to burn in a fire.
The strategy certainly works in the short term (and nets impressive "profits" for the owners/shareholders of such holdings), but in the long term... let's just hope no one will ever be able to pull through this kind of "deal" again.
That's the inherent beauty of interconnected and sold loans - no one will be left spared when they eventually default.
Hell, this article could be an example. A little too tinfoil hat for me, though.
I find it very easy to grok compared to choropleth maps and similar charts that attempt to stay true to geography.
Unlike other non-map presentations of US state data, this layout preserves ability to spot regional similarities visually.
Is there a name for this kind of chart layout?
IMHO, the real path forward for retail is to get their in-stock goods in front of online shoppers via their brands' web sites, their own web site and local marketplace sites. Ecommerce is not the solution because nobody can expect to compete with Amazon.
Brands are learning the hard way that they cannot go D2C (direct to consumer), nor make a profit off selling on Amazon. They HAVE to support their network of retailers: small and large.
Yes, the day of reckoning for retail is coming. But it won't be an apocalypse. 90+% of retail transactions still occur in a brick and mortar store and people love to shop. Most retailers (and brands) just don't have the data and tools (yet) to drive traffic to stores. They're still figuring out the Amazon problem.
We're getting there though.
I feel like it's not that malls or retailers are dying, but instead all the revenue is going to a few places with wealthy, urban locations. Perhaps this has to do with the influx of people moving from the suburbs into cities?
#2: The Atlanta metro had about two-dozen thriving malls a couple of decades ago. Today there's, what? Lenox/Phipps, Perimeter, maybe Cumberland (?). Mall of Georgia way out in the boondocks, having killed all the others along the I-85 corridor? Even Lenox isn't as hopping today as it was in the "old Buckhead" (i.e. pre-Ray Lewis) days. The trend is pretty stark.
Anyone got a reasonable way to synthesize those competing thoughts?
Since the Fed stopped the liquidation of bad assets and refused to allow pricing to adjust, the question is what new bubble we funneled capital into. There's a lot of evidence that banks have been reluctant to make loans to consumers, both because of real risks around modeling of real estate pricing, and also because of changes in the regulatory regime.
It seems like it's possible that we're starting to see where all the credit has been going -- rampant investment into retail. The article mostly ignores restaurants and grocery stores (explicitly so) but we've seen other articles [2] talking about those sectors starting to show weakness as well.
[1] Not a source that I'd usually cite, but here's Krugman in 2005: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/opinion/greenspan-and-the-...
I still think there's a problem with retail, but adding the above seems like salting the earth you're trying to grow a diverse farm in.
Is this capitalism in it's final form?
I think the GP is saying that absent the LB types extracting the money in the past, these companies would be profitable even after including interest payments because they had no business need to take on that debt. It was incurred solely as a mechanism to turn the company into a debt-machine for the benefit of the then shareholders. They took a bunch of expected future earnings, as a lump sum, at that time that turned out to not be real.
First I like how there is no piechart, but box charts (easier to read). Then the 2nd path of job recovery in time since 2008 show a more recent divergence of retail job.
Finally, it is the first time I see how GIS maps can be supplemented by stacked rectangular graphs for each state where the trend in time is shown. I spotted something going on in New England on the choropleth, but the graph nailed it.
Very inspiring to read, especially for the graphs.
Is there some kind of job that actually needs to be done that wouldn't better be filled by automation? If not, maybe light automation (local 3D printing and final assembly) could move to such spaces.
I realize you can effectively do that online by buying a bunch of stuff and returning what you don't want. But that's more of a hassle than just going to a brick and mortar retailer.
A breakdown of retail by their target income demographic might reveal more.
From the Wikipedia entry mentioned at the top of the article.
I'd like to see more intimate online shopping experiences involving at least a short (30s) video call between buyer and seller, at least for first-time customers. It would be particularly potent to make pleasant greetings, express joy at the opportunity to shop/serve, show the credit card on the video monitor, a photo-id, plus incidentals that give a sense for who you are. That way fraud only happens with full-blown identity theft, and now you have a good image of the thief to help the victim get relief, and you can even add the thief to a buyer blacklist. (Interestingly the video evidence format helps avoid the case where a seller blacklists people they "just don't like".)
There are real problems that brick-and-mortar solve though, mainly having instant tactile demos of products, like holding an iPhone at the Apple store or trying on clothes. Future businesses will figure out how to combine the two approaches into a profitable business model. Trunk club is a good, if expensive, example.
You can't give away commercial space here in Buffalo. Prices are <$1/sq in a lot of places. A few years ago, ~60% of the commercial space in North Buffalo was vacant.
Our malls are...problematic. Two have already converted into office space, with a third being slowly transitioned as it empties (I believe it is empty now). One of our malls is dying a slow and painful death, even as it is surrounded by a booming retail space. Our other mall has been designed very well to be a destination vs an in/out type of location.
But there are still many commercial vacancies. I don't know a lot about zoning, but many of these locations should really be repurposed to residential. There's also a large sprawl problem.
Finally, it looks like Niagara Falls was included in that statistic and Niagara Falls is an absolute shithole.
I agree, the geographic arrangement is a really nice innovation on the idea.
[1]https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=...
[2]https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&source=hp&ei=F0IDWp75...
What's unique to retail about that graph?
But what's going on with Washington State?
Why? I love my local baker, but for brand name items, I'm going to order online.
> BOPIS (buy online pick up in store)
Why is this attractive to anyone? If I am making the effort to fight traffic and parking to visit a physical location, I want to handle the item. "BOPIS" seems like the worst of all worlds to me.
> knowledge of what is in stock nearby
This is crucial. This is the main reason I no longer visit physical stores. They likely don't have the item I want in stock. It's just an exercise in pure frustration. I don't want to be cross-sold or up-sold, and I certainly don't need someone to order an item that will require a return visit in 2-4 weeks.
> local delivery
Maybe if it is same day, otherwise why do people care?
really? even for things like bikes, sporting goods, clothes, running shoes, ... I could go on. And the thing is: you'd still be ordering online, just not from amazon. if you order directly from brands and the brand can inform you that there is a local shop that has it within miles, why not get it there? why waste the resources of having to have it shipped (long distance) only to potentially have to ship it back?
> BOPIS
same day delivery beats BOPIS but it is a solid option when there is limited stock. you are putting on hold. best buy and home depot are killing with this right now.
> knowledge of what is in stock nearby
yep.
> delivery
agreed.
Isn't this similar to the last-ditch effort Blockbuster tried while in its death throes?
I remember them taking on Netflix with the idea that it sucked to wait for another movie in the mail, so just come into the store and pick up a new one!
Not surprisingly, it turned out people hate going to stores more than they hate waiting.
It didn't feel very good to read your comment and then only find out at the end that you have both a personal and professional stake in the matter.
But I think there will be significant, very painful collateral damage to people during this transition and I've very sympathetic to people hit by the job losses. Retail is one of the few remaining sectors in small towns. Most other work is becoming increasingly concentrated in big cities or automated away. The days of the US as a patchwork of thriving small towns is ending, but many people still live in those towns. Worse, the ones still there are often there because they are the least able to move — poverty, family commitments, etc.
The US is rapidly turning into a country that has no place for the unskilled, but is also failing to provide the education needed to deal with the millions of unskilled citizens.
I'm also confident that in all of this, it's not the finance industry that's going to be hurt. They'll pull another "too big to fail" maneuver and we taxpayers will bail them out, yet again transferring money to the ultra-rich.
I was wondering about this forcing stores to provide more expertise and more flexible inventory. In my town 2 stores in a specific industry went out of business 3 years ago and made a big deal in the papers about how too many people were buying direct from manufacturers instead of visiting their store. I had been to both stores, asked some questions about products, got dumb answers and bad attitude, so I went home and bought everything online. In the last 2 years, 3 new stores in that same industry, 2 of them MASSIVE, have opened up near by (one of them in the same strip mall), and are doing very well. The difference? When you walk into these stores the employees know what they're talking about and they VERY quickly adjust inventory based on current market trends. Now I make most purchases in one of these 3 stores and not online - because I can do research better by talking to them and I can get most things immediately. It's required bigger investment from the owners, but they have thrived where previous stores failed and blamed e-commerce.
Doesn't work with a lot of commodities, but if you're in retail, I think it's clear you need to specialize and add value - and that requires more investment. Don't just be there and expect to keep existing.
Why would this lead to less suburban sprawl? Unleashed from any interest in physical commerce, wouldn't suburban sprawl perhaps be even more attractive? There's a lot of assumptions here that these changes will have us reverting to older forms, but I don't see any reason why.
And then get shipped a knock-off product that doesn't do what the customer needs.
Or spending hours sorting through endlessly scrolling pages of choices, taking hours longer than just walking down store aisle.
Online shopping has some benefits, and also some serious drawbacks.
Instead, we'll have giant eyesore big-box empty buildings on oversized empty parking lots littering the land that nobody wants, and few who can afford to tear down and replace.
And what will they replace them with? New houses or apartments or condos few can afford? Maybe office space?
I'm reminded of an article I read last year about parents buying presents for kids at Christmas. In the 90s it was easy. The kid wanted a thing. A gaming device, a dress, or a car... there was an object that the kid wanted to own. That object was sold at a store. But today's kids don't want things. They have the iPhone. What they want is 50,000 likes on facebook. Their happiness is tied less directly to things than social acceptance. Often having the thing leads to that social acceptance, but increasingly not. Your seeing the junk as superfluous, and mentioning it here on HN, fits with that shift away from retail goods and towards social acceptance via online communities.
For example here in buffalo we have small stores for spiritual goods that also serve as community centers for such spiritual practices.
Historically, public markets have also provided a platform for important non-commercial informal civic interactions. The review section of e.g. Amazon doesn't seem to cut it.
The confluence of events that the article alludes to are that many retail stores went through a period of consolidation and buyout through leveraged debt. As anyone with big credit card bills understands, it sucks when you're spending a huge chunk of your income just to pay interest on your credit cards. (or in these stores cases their junk bonds).
This massive debt load is forcing changes faster than what one might see organically and as a result there is a lot of turmoil in the retail business.
Or you can be sentimental for practical reasons:
"Eliminating the middleman is never as simple as it sounds. ‘Bout 50% of the human race is middlemen, and they don’t take kindly to being eliminated."
-Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly)
But we don't program in a void, right? Somebody has to create work for us and those would be the ones doing "superfluous" things. In other words, nobody would need our programming if all they did was supporting our programming.
Retail is mostly about entertainment now, primarily for women. Women like to shop for clothes and try stuff on. They like to be taken out to restaurants and movies and go to these with their friends. They like to go see their personal trainer at the gym. They like to go and get their hair and nails done and gossip. They send their kids to the math tutor. They send their littler kid to gymboree. They have a coffee at Starbucks.
If you look at some of the retail REITs and listen to their conference calls, a lot of stores are going out, but a lot are going in. Things are definitely changing to be more service and health oriented and the Big Box and Mega Mall trend is certainly over. The smaller format residential and mixed use stuff is going to be fine because they are more about services and entertainment as opposed to merely transactional delivery of mass market goods. People still want to leave the house and go somewhere.
This paragraph is so ridiculous. All of it is just little patronizing insults about women for normal things men and women like to do. As a male, I also like shopping for clothes, going to restaurants and movies with my friends (women are 'taken'), going to the gym (women go 'for their personal trainer', because we all know they can't do it alone), and getting my hair cut and nails worked on (women also need to gossip). I've even heard tell of men sending their kids to tutors and gymborees and having coffee at Starbucks. Crazy, right?
It's interesting that you start by insulting the parent with this generalization about their 'alpha-nerd' status, and then drop straight into a parody of men's and women's stereotypes from the 1950s, and then finish with a pablum point about people still wanting to leave the house.
But buying stuff made in China was cheap, even people who made $30k/year could do that. But going out for coffee, brunch, movies, massages, trainers, that stuff is way more expensive, and so is limited to the nicer parts of town.
Yeah, I can see that.
>weird outdated stereotypes and condescending tone
Please don't.
They provide an interface between parties who wish to exchange information, goods, services, and time.
The nature of middle-people businesses is changing, but they're not going away.
The modern day middlemen are doing a better job with way less people. Hence the Retail Apocalypse...
Often they lie to producers to lower prices then lie to consumers by selling these deal at the usual rate (or faking a false discount week for appearances and then put back products back on the normal shelves).
As other said, economic and information asymmetry is not good.
Honestly .. aggregators should be a national thing, there's almost no competition to be had there. Kinda like internet, it should be way more neutral, except maybe on safety check (again, something to nationalize).
The few shops I go to, I don't go there because they have every possible product, I go there because I know their purchasing reflects the opinions and qualities that I also value.
- Transportation
- Breaking wholesale packs into something an average person can actually buy
- Holding and efficiently managing huge inventories
- Allowing you to touch, see, and sometimes try items before you buy them
- Dealing with broken items, instantly replacing them
- Providing all these services locally
Large retail chains are often anchor stores that sustain retail centers. When they shut down the economy of the retail center collapses. This impact spreads beyond the retail centers to surrounding businesses. The reduced retail traffic means that fewer people are stopping for lunch at restaurants, fueling up at gas stations, picking up prescriptions at Pharmacies, dropping off dry cleaning, etc. As a result these businesses are forced to cut back on staffing and possibly reduce hours. This causes further declines in business as the quality of service decreases. Eventually many of these business are forced to go under.
The abandoned retail centers also impact property values in surrounding areas and result in increased crime rates.
This process isn't immediate and the works displaced do not immediately find new employment. Thus you have a period where these workers are either without jobs or facing ever reducing hours which results in less disposable income.
In large urban centers you might have a dozen or more retail centers to chose from within a short distance from your home but in rural ares you're lucky if you have more than one.
In a lot of rural America you'll find many communities surrounding a Walmart often on the outskirts of a dried up husk of a town. In the 80s and 90s Walmart built supercenters just outside of the jurisdiction of small towns. The retailers in these towns couldn't compete on price and eventually folded. The small shops that didn't directly compete with Walmart (e.g. nail salons, shoe repair) eventually would end up leasing space inside the Walmart.
What's being described is a company who's operations are profitable, that simply has excessive debt. In that case the operations can be sold in bankruptcy to recover whatever money is possible with the buyer assuming operations.
What kills malls is when an Anchor store is unprofitable.
the idea being that the 1% who has 90% of the country's wealth needs a little more to create jobs (from thin air)
whereas the truth is that people spending money is what will create jobs
it's such a shame
[1] Usually "we have", but sometimes "we anticipate".
Yes, i definitely pay a premium for purchases I make at each one of these. But it’s not an astronomical amount, and it makes more sense if you think about these kind of stores as local warehouses.
Why don’t I just have a 70lb bag of dog food delivered every n days? Idk, I don’t want to have to think about the dog food until I have to think about the dog food. If dog food shows up when I’m out of town, or there’s actually a weeks worth of food left because Externalities, now I have an extra dog food storage problem.
I will never order groceries. Picking my meat and fresh produce is something I will never outsource. Especially if it is more expensive.
I order online because it is usually cheaper for electronic accessories and books.
But I also live in an actual city instead of an endless sea of suburban houses.
If anything I am doing less online shopping over time as I keep getting burned. Though I also lived next door to a mall for years which changed my habits somewhat.
far more likely, i'll just put the batteries on my shopping list for the next time i am at the grocery.
You might be able to satisfy our retail needs with 1/4 the staff.
I personally think we're headed for a crash that's more than just a depression but something on a whole different level. Dependent of course on automation / job losses / politics between now and 2030.
The point that people overlook there is that the aesthetics—indoor mall vs outdoor pedestrian-friendly throughway through a central part of a town—don't actually matter nearly as much as thought, since if you went at 10AM on a Thursday you'd think it was just a nice little downtown with a surprisingly high amount of retail in a small town next to LA.
And there are definitely good cafes, parks, and a library, yet all you're seeing here is still just a lot of people complaining about it. So maybe those aren't the critical components the OP seems to think they are.
There's no reason you couldn't turn the space and structure of a stereotypical 80s mall into a different sort of organizing space, without a whole "we need traditional looking downtowns" push.
Hell, even if I wanted to, often by the time I need more pants, things have changed. Either the brand/style combo is no longer available, or I've gotten fatter (or skinnier! It has been happening recently!).
Land prices in the cities where malls are developed have inflated past the carrying capacity of the prevailing disposable income in the same areas.
Is it really though? I miss the arcade machines of old. I wonder if anyone has tried bringing some of that concept back...
I feel like the arcade concept could potentially be brought back, but it would require some creative thinking.
In 2000, Ray Lewis was in town for an away game or whatever reason. He and his entourage got into a nightclub altercation that lead to a stabbing death... you know, just read his Wikipedia entry if you're not already aware of those details.
Anyway, it was an EXTREMELY high-profile story in the local press, and shortly thereafter the bar and nightclub scene was drastically curtailed.
Now, it's definitely arguable whether this should be attributed to Ray Lewis. The truth is more complex... political pressure from wealthy local residents had been building for years, and the Lewis incident was really just a "symbolic" tipping point. Regardless, a lot us lifelong Atlanta residents tend to remember that incident as one of those miniature 9/11-ish moments where a culture shifts abruptly.
For many years Netflix actually mailed DVDs (physical goods) to your home.
and yeah I used to get netflix DVDs to my home. and hit blockbuster for many years before that. there was no possible good ending for blockbuster!
> really? even for things like bikes, sporting goods, clothes, running shoes, ... I could go on.
I have personally ordered all of these online, although there are some types of clothes that I don't like ordering online.
> And the thing is: you'd still be ordering online, just not from amazon. if you order directly from brands and the brand can inform you that there is a local shop that has it within miles, why not get it there?
Because I have to schedule a trip to the location. To me, this is like asking: "why not travel to the post office to pick up your mail?" Well, because instead the item can be delivered to my door step.
> why waste the resources of having to have it shipped (long distance) only to potentially have to ship it back?
In both cases, the item is traveling the same distance from manufacturer to my door step. It is more efficient to ship the item from the warehouse directly to my door step vs. first shipping it to some random location miles from my door step. The only difference is whose resources are used to ship the item the last few miles: my vehicle or a UPS truck. I guarantee the UPS truck is dozens of times more efficient.
With Amazon Prime (90 million US subscribers) shipping and most returns are free, so I'm paying twice if I use my vehicle to pick something up from a store. The current Amazon return process (explicitly to take this argument off the table): box arrives at door step, open box, try out item, take out preprinted return sticker, put return sticker on box, put box on door step, let Amazon know to pick it up. It is no effort. This is rare enough that the efficiency impact is minimal, although possibly less rare for clothes. The situation may change if returns become full fare.
> BOPIS ... is a solid option when there is limited stock
This is a super rare situation for me, but I agree that BOPIS is superior in this situation.
> best buy and home depot are killing with this right now
I'm quite surprised by this, is there a good article about this around?
Yes, to me, it is worth the slight price premium to reward that convenience.
The logical consequence would be manufacturer stalls replacing shops in the waiting areas (like a permanent trade fair) and Amazon adding pick-up warehouses to the exits.
This is still the reality in countries where the social fabric hasn't disintegrated.
What I would really like is for a few blocks of University to become pedestrian-only with lots of outdoor seating for its cafes and restaurants. (The same goes for other downtown areas in the South Bay, like Santa Cruz in Menlo Park.) It's amazing how little outdoor seating we have in the Bay Area despite the amazing weather.
That being said, University Ave becoming increasingly "corporate blasé" in its selection of restaurants (basically great for a business meeting and little else) is sad to see.
The personal vehicle oriented commutes exacerbate this.
There's a difference between needing parking, and surrounding an area with a moat of parked cars.
I think one big problem retail is facing is that, for a long time, efficiency won the day. The chains and their supply chains and economies of scale drove more and more mom and pops out of business, and then only the really efficient chains could survive, and then they had to refinance and take on all this debt that the article mentions, and pretty soon there's absolutely nothing to mourn, and no reason not to buy from Amazon rather than drive to a Best Buy. Some truly unique independent mom and pop or local shops could be worth spending a few bucks more than Amazon to patronize. GenericMall stores give me 0 reason to patronize them over Amazon.
I knew a guy who ran a shoe store and provided a high level of personalized service when selecting the right shoe for your feet, gait, use, etc. Hiring and training employees who were knowledgeable enough to do that, plus having to spend a lot more time with each customer, made it a lot more expensive to sell shoes, and when Amazon and other online retailers started offering shoes for a lot lower prices (because they didn't have to provide the same level of personalized service), he eventually went out of business because people would come into his store and have him help them find the right shoe, then go home and order it for 20% cheaper or whatever.
If you are a consumer, it seems rational to go somewhere and try something on, get expert advice about it, etc, then go purchase it wherever it is least expensive. Why pay 20 or 30% more or whatever for the same thing? Some sort of unwritten social contract (this is usually the reason I don't use local stores as showrooms)? Time sensitivity? As a retailer who goes this route, you kind of have to pin your hopes on those things.
Showrooming is a real problem, and retailers are faced with the decision of trying to add value and hope people end up buying there even though it costs more money, or trying to cut costs in every possible way to compete on price, and I don't know that it's an easy choice all of the time.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if Walmart has had almost as much of a negative impact on malls as Amazon and its ilk have.
Imagine putting a Walmart inside of an average US mall. Now crank up the number of stores and activities to 11. That's how major malls in the UAE are like.
It isn't exactly that one is a substitute for the other, but one managed to effectively destroy the highest grossing businesses of the other.
Also, I've been in a mall in the US that effectively had a Walmart as an anchor. It was "interesting" and strangely it probably contributed to that mall's competitiveness in the area.
If you follow the link, the more accurate quote is [1]
> Close to 80 malls in the U.S. have some type of curfew or escort policy regarding teenagers
Having a policy is different from enforcing it, and a curfew policy is quite different from an escort policy, so who knows what this really means?
Time writes, citing Credit Suisse, that there are about 1100 malls in the US today [2], so this might still be fairly rare.
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/teens-are-getting-banned-from-mal... [2] http://time.com/4865957/death-and-life-shopping-mall/
Adults aren't much better, but they're much less energetic unless they've been drinking.
Honestly, it also provides the thrill of impulse shopping without the guilt or monetary expense. Most of the "save for later" items never get ordered, or I realize they're part of a bigger project I need to make time for.
Also, doesn't Montreal have the Underground City specifically for staying out of the cold in the winter?
I used to be much more resilient but now would prefer a warmer climate, bring on global warming!
True, but neither does the strip mall surrounding a Best Buy parking lot.
Sounds like you you're mistaking "wealthy people" for "the cognitive elite"! The shopping behaviors you're describing are just those of people who have either the time or capital to spend trying to get marginally better stuff.
> [...] soon enough its going to be a required new higher minimum of economic participation. You'll pick out your next bicycle by reading technical manuals and holding a ruler up to your leg, or you'll fail miserably at buying a bicycle.
I don't know what kind of bicycle shopping you're envisioning, but it sounds pretty damn weird to me. It's kind of hard to buy a bike that just doesn't work at all for most people. Even if your bike is several sizes off, it's just going to be more obnoxious to pedal. I'm in Boston, and I see tons of people commute around on bikes which really don't fit them at all and they do just fine. Even the crappiest bike is leagues better than walking
Also, I don't know how many people currently buy their bikes online who aren't already really into cycling vs people who buy them used or at a brick and mortar store, but I doubt it's high compared to, say, clothes.
[Edit]
> Just like its sad that illiterate or innumerate people get screwed in todays economy, people who can't shop like an engineer are going to get screwed in coming decades.
The type of shopping behavior you're describing is a luxury of the rich, not a necessity for most people. If you were to say, "not-wealthy people will be screwed over in the decades to come" I'd agree and point out that that's already the case.
This is a pretty odd assumption. Why do you assume that doing your research means valuing money _less_? If anything, I would assume the opposite. I grew up lower middle class with a scholarship to a school full of upper class kids, and doing my research usually meant getting the best value for my money : when you have lots of money, it's often easier to just throw a bunch of money at the most commonly purchased product perceived as luxury instead of spending your time doing research on which provides the best value.
Your bike example doesn’t really make much sense, because for the vast majority of people, the cheapest bike will do. Most people don’t bother measuring themselves first, and there’s basically no need to do so at all.
[edit]
To clarify: I don’t think that doing the type of research you described on a thing you’re buying means you value money less, but that it means you probably aren’t shopping for that thing out of necessity.
They are hoist on their own petard, because as it turns out, the young families chose the big box stores to save money, and the affluent people are not numerous enough or consumerist enough to support more than one mall in their town. That mall gets the Brookstones and Sephoras and Victoria's Secrets and the Apple Stores. The other malls are full of basically nothing but cell phone vendor kiosks and a food court, and they die.
Malls made an intentional decision to push shopping over social activity, and killed their appeal, because you can shop from anywhere by using your phone, and 99% of what you want comes from a combination of your grocery store, big box store (possibly the same as your grocery store), and online shopping. There is now no reason whatsoever to physically travel to any mall in the US. They have only lame chain restaurants, the Borders/Waldenbooks has been closed for decades, the good music store closed and only the corporate sellout store remains, the Radio Shack is gone, Sears left, JCPenney is kaput, but you have plenty of stores that sell "fashion" to teen girls, including the ubiquitous Express, Justice, Forever 21, and Hot Topic. So the mall is where your mom takes you when the clothes at Wal-Mart, Target, or Kohl's aren't good enough any more.
I think if malls had gone the other direction, perhaps by adding mid-size under-21 live music venues as anchors, they would not be falling apart today.
They also removed much of what would attract teens and that age group. And many of the "older person stores" are ridiculously priced. Amazon, Walmart online, Aliexpress, and others are cheaper.
Malls are full of expensive stuff, not very good stuff, and caters to nobody in particular.
I know for us, it's because "Payless Shoes" that has cheap size 15's is the only reason why. So we beeline in, and out.
You may see retail employees as unnecessary middlemen, but they provide a value a machine cannot.
I can talk to GameStop employees about which new games they played to see if they’ll be fun; I can talk to petsmart employees about proper pet care; I can go over installation prodcedures with the Geek Squad folks at BestBuy; I can get recommendations on outfits at the upscale men’s clothing store I frequent...and so on.
There is no superior specialization in this regard. Many of these examples are because of the relationships I have cultivated with long-term retail employees, who know me and my preferences far better than any machine learning algorithm has attempted to match.
That only changes who those middlemen are and their scope. Based on what I'm currently seeing on search machines can only deliver exactly what I'm asking for. Rarely do they recommendations that aren't patterns. For example, I was looking for backup software a few months ago, I get tons of ad pages on backup software now. I purchased that software months ago and no longer need backup software. It's probably going to be many more months before my search history cycles out of ad networks.
Another example. A road was recently converted to pedestrian only in my neighborhood. Would you like to know the number of Lyft/Uber drivers that follow Google Maps end up at a dead end and have to double back? And that is coming from the world's most powerful search engine.
I don't think best is correct in a lot of contexts, but just good enough is enough in most cases.
You're silly if you think that the industry isn't already using large data analysis to do this job. There's still plenty of value by having a human at the end of the tunnel to actually interpret it though.
You'd have to be older than gen-x to remember malls favorably as a teen. The place to socialize is/was high school sports in (ahem, under) the stands, and darkly lit movie theaters. Since the 80s, which is a long time ago, trying to hang out at the mall will get you kicked out by rentacops or arrested.
Another problem is the dead mall death spiral has no backwards movement, can only ratchet toward death. The closest mall to me went 95% womens clothing stores a long time ago and is now on the march toward having its sixth athletic shoe store. Its a one way path to foreclosure, like a diode action only moving one way. I don't buy womens clothes, so other than taking my wife or daughter there, its already dead to me...
Its interesting that when I was a kid the mall provided the novelty of everything under one roof. Then big box stores happened and there is no appeal to lots of little box stores under one roof when I can just go to Target or Walmart. Walmart today is the early 80s mall of my youth.
I remember Spaceport and Aladin's castle. .25$ arcades, and $1 gave 5 tokens. You could play for hours just on $5. And they allowed kids, competitions, and all sorts of things. I'd go hang out while my parents were shopping, and just chill.
There also used to be, in quite a lot of the malls, a jungle gym or playground area. They'd be full of kids, and you could just chill and hang out, except for free. But there were usually age limits so you didn't hurt little ones. And around this was always a common area. Lots of tables, food places, coffee shop or 2.
Clubs and nonprofits would meet here - it was a huge commons area. I remember fondly playing chess on chess club nights. Played some pretty awesome pros there.
And the companies there.. You had Sears, Estee Lauder, Nordstrom, and all those big name box stores. And then you'd have all sorts of smaller stores scattered, with rarely ever any room left over (1-2 empty plots due to eventual turnover). But there was something for everyone. Maybe it was a candy store, or a toy store, or specialty thing.
That's all changed.
Arcades are gone. Yeah, there's one 35 miles away from me, in the next city over. The jungle gyms and playgrounds were deemed dangerous and unsupervised, so they were decommissioned. You know, for "safety". And those tables? Yeah, those only encourage bums and lazy people to congregate, so they're right out.
And those clubs? Yeah, they need to pay rent if they want to have a group, so they too were summarily kicked out (Well.. it is private property :/ ). And now with less people, those food vendors started closing. That coffee shop had not enough customers and moved/closed. The rest of the food vendors (whom you've never heard of), now started skimping hard and jacking the prices.
And that's not to add in the compounding issues with online stores. A single online store can house millions of products. No real retailer can do that. So, you see the big box stores being squeezed by both the malls running people out, higher prices than online, and better selection than online. So, they end up closing and going bankrupt. It's not any one fault here, but a compound effect that set these things in motion.
For me, its that single shoe place. I make a point to park at the closest place to get in, try on shoes, and get out. There's nothing else here for me. And clothing is really the last bastion of something you really should be in person for - cause sending back stuff sucks.
Unfortunately they don't have much in the way of documentation about it. I might have to bug them about it when I go home for the holidays.
There are gyms (generally Konami health clubs), food and shopping, and gardens on the rooftop.
And yeah, the first time I saw a Konami gym my mind boggled. Is this how Snake stays in such good shape? Use promo code Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start and get a 30-day free membership!
> Parking is wack though.
Literally all of LA is like this. Pro-tip, in SM, park at the library. Cheaper and easier to get in/out.
It seems like every other day a new 40+ story mixed-use tower, with requisite parking structure, is breaking ground around here.
The thing that baffled me about downtown’s parking situation was how so many otherwise undeveloped parking lots managed to stick around given the opportunity cost of land downtown. That was until I realized a production crew can’t set up base camp in a parking garage.
Presumably because LA finally managed to make a section of the city livable and they don't want to hasten its demise. Parking has pretty massive costs for quality of life and the livability of a city.
LA is just in a weird transition point right now, where even a furious pace of transit building isn't going to remake the car-centric infrastructure overnight.
Parking is not DTLA's problem.
In other words, they're saying the businesses aren't profitable enough to service debt loads that were thought to be sustainable debt loads a few years ago.
That still points to lower than expected retail profit. Interest rates have been unusually low for more than a decade, so it's not like a credit spike changed the assumptions.
Anyway, at best it contributes to a negative feedback loop.
No, the debt was never sustainable. Essentially the banks allowed loans which were gigantic ponzi schemes.
Retail: "Our growth will continue forever!"
Banks: Hmm, we got bit pretty hard on these home loans and need somewhere else to make money, "Forever growth is like infinite money, I like money!", "Here is 10 billion dollars, just remember to pay us back in 2017".
For the last 10+ years many "malls" have been outdoor "areas" with shops, beautified walking paths, communal spaces, grocery stores, movie theaters, etc. Essentially miniature downtowns.
We have both these and the classic style mall here. Only 2 or 3 classic malls any more. However, they are all VERY successful. There were 7-8 and I've watched many die, or be taken over by distribution hubs, data centers (think big non-customer facing building)
We've had about 3-4 outdoor malls developed in the last 10 years. All are going strong, albeit they are new.
I think this is a regional thing; in warmer climates, outdoor shopping centers with community-centric areas have been all the rage for years.
Sounds great, until it snows.
My wider (and a bit tangential/ranty) theory is that the most tacky, tasteless and lacking self-control customers are actually the most profitable, hence businesses generally tend to pander to them. It's just much easier to extract unreasonable amounts of money from someone who's unreasonable (an adult child basically) than from someone sensible and reasonable, so for example us techies are not the target for a lot of companies.
The mall only cares about ROI, and providing a nice space for someone to sit and read a book, play hide and seek, host a club meeting, or stage a free play has little obvious monetary value.
Whatever amenities are provided will be carefully balanced against direct extra spending they bring in, instead of abstract civic improvement.
In dense urban areas, malls tend towards the high end and can be quite nice. The Shops at Copley Place in Boston is fairly high end in terms of shops and the architecture is nice. The Westfield in SF is nice in my recollection.
Also the odd item you occasionally need when something goes out of stock locally (like a trash bag, clothing reaches end of useful life etc).
Most of us are really pretty bad at tracking our purchases. We don’t want to look at them because it means admitting we have a problem. But we know the trash is full all the time and don’t think about how that correlated with consumption. Basically I was trying to trick people into an honest conversation about something nobody likes to be honest about.
And at any rate if the quantity is “more than 200” then it just reinforces GGP’s point.
I am always marveled when I go to SM. Huge modern parking structures on every block.
DTLA is different. It is still within the driving circuit, and all other LA shopping destinations have decent free or cheap parking.
Paying 11 dollars just to park might be okay for work, but not okay if you're just looking to walk around or shop.
That's why BH and SM and all major malls have free or cheap parking. DTLA can't compete with these destinations in retail, until they fix this.
Joe's parking is not going to cut it.
But even I have embraced online stores. Every major fashion brand has an online store, and its just much too convenient to order online rather than have to drive to a mall etc.etc. I would rather, read a book or hang out with friends over a beer.
Which brings me to an excellent observation you made: most stores in malls are reorienting to serve more women. I think women love the social aspects of shopping (i.e. trying out new clothes with friends and getting their opinions) as much as the actual shopping itself, which is probably why many women continue to go to malls.
I think Malls are missing out on some great opportunities to be entertainment centers. They get the footfall; instead of orienting towards selling shit, they should be trying to provide some kind of experience.
There's the food court.
Also see the constraint on "mom is stuck with the kids" to this day even in 2017 etc. So a movie theater is a hard sell if mom has the baby in the stroller.
Of course going to the mall implies having money and a car, which means the library is accessible, so having story time at the mall merely replicates a service that's barely getting by somewhere else; better off just driving to the library or whatever rather than imitating it and splitting the participants such that possibly neither can be a success.
It'd only be a small amount of electricity used, and a bit of janitors they already have. They could pull in a few non-profit groups doing fun stuff (game club, moms club as you said, techie club, etc.) and drum up foot traffic and business. But given the doom-and-gloom article after article, I'm guessing they're looking for as many ways to cut costs as possible.
I figure our mall has a few years left. There's enough shops like "Lidz", candy stores, some weird smelly pet store, the usual 16-21 girly clothing stores, the goth store (spencers), a Target, and a few others. But the life's certainly being drained out step by step.
This has been discussed here before, and seems to be a bit of a blind spot for HN. Imagine you live in a place where there's only one "mall" nearby: that's most of America (geographically speaking).
Hard for anyone but Amazon to maintain that kind of return throughput.
http://cbs4indy.com/2016/03/21/amazon-bans-customer-for-retu...
Apparently the cut-off lies somewhere around 10%, they ban you for life though.
Surely you recognize that your mindset while purchasing that guitar was different than that of a serious musician investing a substantial sum in an instrument they'll play for thousands of hours.
- Wetsuits - Ski gear - Shoes - Bikes
Also, lots of plot points are ruined if people can just text each other, take photos, or record video as needed.
The reason why free range parenting has gone down so much can be seen in the series.
There was a believable scene in which one kid bullied another into taking an almost certainly fatal jump into the quarry, and was only saved by paranormal means.
A world in which more free-range parenting is the norm inherently implies a world in which kids more often pay the consequences of their actions, which can be death or maiming.
We, as a society, do not seem to have a stomach for this, to the point where free-range parenting has been equated with neglect.
I watched it last night so it's fresh in my mind. It was paranormal events that setup this scene and made the bully go to such extremes to begin with.
It was also one of the worst, least believable scenes in the series. The fact that he was so willing to jump, the threats the bully was giving, etc. It was just weak writing in an attempt to create a dramatic reunion. When your 11 years old it takes some time to build up the courage to make a safe jump from something like a bridge, let alone a possible fatal jump.
In the US one of the big problems is a culture of legal liability for every possible thing, and a general culture of fearfulness, excuse-making, and ass-covering instead of allowing moderate informed risks and dealing responsibly with the consequences. If you have too steep a slide, some kid is going to fall off and the parents will sue and bankrupt your town. If you let kids ride the bus by themselves, 1 kid in a million is going to get kidnapped and the parents will sue. Etc.
But there are surely other contributing factors: more families with 2 working parents (and more single parents) and in general less adults “hanging out” with an eye on their neighborhoods, a general degradation of community relationships and civic institutions, smaller family sizes (it’s much easier to chaperone 1 kid than 6), more middle-class angst about maximizing children’s future earning potential, more media attention on rare tragedies, communication improvements leading to less spontaneous social gatherings and more virtual socialization, increasing reliance on car transport and inaccessibility of unsupervised play spaces (especially undeveloped land), etc.
The video comes from FEE though, so it's obviously got a political bias behind it that explains it's opposition to safe spaces. People on the more socially conservative end of the spectrum don't seem to understand safe spaces and how they are actually a rejection of authority, rather than an appeal to authority. The notion of authority used is simply more subtle.
Some marginalised groups have made a very valid claim that there is a built-in hierarchy in many social norms that constitute acceptable behaviour in mainstream society. And that they tend to be on the shittier end of the deal in that hierarchy. Therefore, rather than acquiesce to the ordinary way of doing things and just accepting the negative effects of living in a world that doesn't value them as it does others, they have decided to carve out a space where they can assert their own version of what should be culturally acceptable. And they ask that others respect their desire for such a space and not enter it without also changing their behaviour and rejecting the toxic standard practices.
It's quite simple, it's like the cultural equivalent of libertarians trying to carve out a piece of land where they can keep the government out and live in their hyper-capitalist utopias. It's inherently anti-authoritarian. Anyone who goes into a safe space is voluntarily choosing to abide by its standards, no one is forcing them to.
I think this is a big one, and not just rare tragedies but distant ones. 40 years ago you heard about the bad things in your village, now the 24 hour news cycle feeds a constant stream of fear from all over the world.
Yes there is a trend to 'protect' kids from everything. But in my country there is a clear counter-culture advocating agianst what they call 'rubber stone' society where everything is done to avoid possible danger.
There are now ads running on TV saying 'let boys be boys', let them climb trees, go out and explore etc...
Online shopping has spoiled me for convenience compared to shopping in person though. What's happened is that I've just ended up not buying as many things because I was trained to expect convenance and then it was taken away
I now live in the US and have kids about the same age.
The issue is not homogeneous culture or any other thing people with no brains come up with, but traffic density, at least in my case.
Where I used to live we could roam without having to cross dangerous streets. Where I live now, there's traffic everywhere and cars don't give a shit about people on foot, so my kids do not roam.
When I was a kid, we used to have vast areas to play safely. I just looked on Google Maps and the cross-country ski route we used to regularly take on weekends is 4 miles long. We had to cross ONE street. I used to bike about 10 miles one way, by myself, when I was a little older and keep on bike lanes the entire trip.
We also used to have large play areas in the backyard of every home I ever had. The bigger ones were the size of a typical New York borough block. We didn't have to leave our homes to get to a playground, or a park...we had one right outside of our door.
Obviously this sort of thing is easier to do / plan for when the entire country has less people than the city of New York.
(weird really - can you do that for killing people by any other means?)
My wife and I have semi-seriously considered moving to northern Scandinavia for both this reason and its comparative likelihood of remaining a decent (well, bearable, if only just) place to live in a clathrate-gun scenario.
There was a case not far from where I live where a driver turning right mowed down a 4-year-old child walking with his grandmother on a CROSSWALK. He wasn't running or anything like that, just crossing the street. The child died. They didn't even charge the driver. Fucking ridiculous. It was 100% the driver's fault. New York Times published an article written by the child's mother who questioned the logic of first of all call it an accident and second of all how the driver wasn't charged with anything, not even reckless driving.
