The difference is that cities used to have numerous malls dotting the suburbs. Now they might have one or two, usually in the rich part of town, filled with fancy stores.
The local mall, with a couple of anchor department stores, a bunch of casual clothing stores, a bookstore, a record store, a movie theater and a food court, have been replaced by sprawling shopping centers with no sense of community.
I can only speak to Nebraska, but the malls here have all of those things except for record stores (for obvious reasons), and the number of malls has not changed in decades. They’re all in various central locations of Lincoln and Omaha and are very much community spaces. Tons of families come to let their kids play in the play spaces (especially lower-income families), teenagers hang out at the mall with their friends, and so on.
The difference is that cities used to have numerous malls dotting the suburbs. Now they might have one or two, usually in the rich part of town, filled with fancy stores.
The local mall, with a couple of anchor department stores, a bunch of casual clothing stores, a bookstore, a record store, a movie theater and a food court, have been replaced by sprawling shopping centers with no sense of community.
I can only speak to Nebraska, but the malls here have all of those things except for record stores (for obvious reasons), and the number of malls has not changed in decades. They’re all in various central locations of Lincoln and Omaha and are very much community spaces. Tons of families come to let their kids play in the play spaces (especially lower-income families), teenagers hang out at the mall with their friends, and so on.