I actually really love department stores.

All the smaller malls died/are dying. The upscale like, destination malls in larger cities are surviving. Maybe one or two per larger city.

Of our surviving malls, they all had to go through a big redesign, to try to steer into the 'hang out' sentiment. Lot's of more higher end dining, a park, apartments/hotels/office space, a few small performance venues for bands.

A mall that has all of that now was, before the renovation, was department stores and specialty shops connected as spartan and efficiently as possible, with a fast food court for convenience but nothing you'd really want to sit longer than you absolutely had to. To the extent it worked as a teen hangout it was because they could grab some cheap food, be inside under a generic roof outside any stores, they could giggle at the stuff in Spencer's Gifts.

Ours is quite lively. Not hating social interaction, but the crowding is a bit much. The other mall died, only got one now.

Being a teen in the 80s, Woodland Hills Mall was the bomb! Big enough to spend the afternoon, hang out, meet girls, hit the arcade, dodge the skins and rednecks who wanted to beat our punker asses. Good times!

We have a megamall in our region that a lot of people go to but our local suburban malls are all pretty much dead and in transition. The one closest to me is slated to be developed into a mixed used residential property with apartments/condos, shops, gym, other businesees, restaurants. This is mostly due to a large chip fab manufacturing project planned to be constructed in the next 2 years. There will be demand for housing and other services so the Town/County is interested in removing any barriers for that kind of development.

2 years ago, I went into that mall during Christmas season and it was very very sad looking.

Not exactly.

In the USA, a ton of malls got built in the 1950's to 1980's because of various tax incentives. These malls were anchored by department stores, providing a middle class place to buy goods.

Department stores tanked when dealing with big big box stores and online retail. Also, some mall specialty stores died off as well. Without that foot traffic, dead malls started to form.

Some malls are fighting back by increasing food and entertainment options, but the economics of malls are pretty rough.

People despawn when you leave to save resources. It's dead when you're not around.

We had one of our local malls torn down and replaced with one of those giant, multi-strip-mall complexes with parking lots that are nearly impossible to navigate through. It dawned on me that it's still basically a mall, just one that you can drive through to each store so you don't have to walk very much.

It's great if you love insanely overpriced clothes!

I love it there.

Do not trust them. They poke you in the asshole.

Unless you're into that, in which case go check em out.

I have at least three near me. I intend to go next month, to get a new iPhone. So yeah, every 2-5 years; I’m not their number one customer

MOA is fantastic and still very populated.

Me and the fam go there a few times a month just to walk and have lunch. Great place for summer when it’s too hot or raining out, great for winter when it’s too cold out.