DailyDirt: Decaying Bricks And Mortar

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Big shopping malls were really popular in the US, but it's getting harder and harder to compete with online shopping and free shipping. The result is a lot of depressing, empty malls just about everywhere. Obviously, some shopping centers are thriving and doing well. But unfortunately, it's not too hard to find an old mall that used to be a great place to hang out -- and now there's not much reason to go there anymore. Here are just a few notable shopping malls from around the world.

• Randall Park Mall in Ohio was once the world's largest shopping when it opened in 1976, but it lost that title pretty quickly. There's not much to look at now (it closed in 2009), and it's being turned into an industrial park. [url]
• An abandoned mall in Bangkok flooded, and it's become a breeding ground for catfish. The New World shopping mall looks like an impressive aquarium now. [url]
• China has some of the largest empty shopping malls in the world. The New South China Mall in Dongguan was about 99% vacant for the first few years after its opening in 2005. (It's not actually abandoned, and it's reportedly gained more stores recently.) [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: catfish, new south china mall, new world shopping mall, randall park mall, retail, shopping malls, vacancy