Author : Keaton Hamilton Wetzel
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 112 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (17 download)
Book Synopsis The Life and Death of Great American Shopping Malls by : Keaton Hamilton Wetzel
Download or read book The Life and Death of Great American Shopping Malls written by Keaton Hamilton Wetzel and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One fifth of America's shopping malls are expected to declare bankruptcy within the next 10 years, resulting in the loss of an important civic space for many suburban Americans. The mall's suburban siting, quasi-public status, and private mechanisms of social control and exclusion have radically transformed traditional notions of public space and democracy embodied by the traditional downtown shopping street. This paper presents strategies for suburban planners who, where the retail market allows, ought to convert these "dead malls" - vacated due to the rise of e-commerce and other changes - into viable public spaces and destinations for vigorous public life. A toolbox of urban design and legal interventions drawn from case studies of financially-successful retrofits of suburban shopping malls in Belmar, Colorado; Cape Cod, Massachusetts; and Boca Raton, Florida are presented to inform a civic-minded framework for redevelopment of vacated shopping mall sites.