Retail is in a more precarious position than at any time since sociologists began documenting urban change. The sector's struggles come at a particularly unfortunate moment: with renewed interest in the aging architecture of long-neglected urban centers, more people are moving to districts that seemed on the brink of abandonment a quarter-century ago. In tandem with urban revitalization, suburban shopping centers have upgraded so that they can compete, delivering well-landscaped, finely wrought retail plazas to supplant the squat, ugly monoliths of yesteryear. But the mass closure of national retailers is devastating shopping centers old and new. The result: even amid a surging economy, the vacancy rate at super-regional malls rose to 8.6 percent in the second quarter of 2018—the worst rate since the third quarter of 2012, when the national and global economy were still reeling from the Great Recession.
Before the Internet, in-person shopping proved essential to bringing people to distinct locations. What will happen to American landscapes—suburban, rural, urban—if we no longer have places to shop? And what will happen to all those buildings, when the tenants that once populated them have moved out?
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